The Weekend with the Canelés
During my Pinterest hour (9 - 10 am in the weekend mornings), I spotted a beautiful picture of Canelés and immediately pinned them on my weekend cooking project board.
I have an obsession with copper cookware. So this weekend's adventure gave me an excuse to splurge a little on a set of Canelés copper molds. To me, copper kitchenware signifies an elevated level of cooking seriousness. I feel that I'm now worthy of copper cookware and am ready to kick it up a notch by investing in these pieces of elegant, beautiful kitchen design.
When the Canelés molds arrived, I felt super giddy. I was so ready to bake myself some pretty little french pastries. But, things turned complicated when I researched the recipe. As it turns out, this dessert requires a few very specific elements and methods to make it 'right.' Apparently, what constitutes a perfect Canelés includes the following:
"The one that has the perfectly, evenly baked crust the color of mahogany, darkly caramelized but without even a hint of burnt. The one that’s crisp and shiny from just the right application of beeswax.., contrasted with the creamy, custardy, sweetly addictive interior. The perfect canelé is what a crème brûlée wants to be when it grows up." - Chez Pim wrote on her blog.
Wait. What!? Beeswax?... Color of mahogany, darkly caramelized without a hint of burnt on the outside? ...Creamy, custardy on the inside?
That sounds a lot like trouble to me. But, as the proud owner of a pair of new shiny Mauviel copper molds, I thought I possessed enough skills to not let these 'tiny' details stop me.
So off I went to search the town for beeswax. And failed at every place I stopped - from the high street store to the farmer's market. This killed my Saturday and deflated my enthusiasm further.
Luckily, Chefsteps has experimented with this dessert without the beeswax before and it looks just as good. I ended up using the recipe from Chez Pim with a baking method from Chefsteps. And there you have it.
Not too bad for the first-timer, eh?
