SweetloreEncyclopedia of World Sweets (534）
Canelé
Canelé de Bordeaux
A dark crust and a soft interior: Bordeaux's molded pastry
Baked Sweets ／ France
Break open the deeply browned crust, and a soft center rich in milk and eggs appears. The canelé of Bordeaux is a pastry made by pouring a single liquid batter into small fluted molds and baking it so that the outside and the center take on different textures. The batter is scented with rum and vanilla, and molds that conduct heat well dry out the exterior. The contrast between the crust and the interior comes from the difference in how the outer part touching the mold and the center are heated.
Canelés baked in fluted molds (2007, location unknown). Photo: Peek-poke / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0.
Infusing the milk and resting the batter in the refrigerator
The milk is warmed with a split vanilla pod to infuse its aroma, and the butter is melted. Flour is mixed into the eggs, egg yolks and sugar, and the milk is added little by little to make a smooth liquid batter. Some recettes (recipes, meaning the proportions of ingredients and the method) use both whole eggs and egg yolks, so the batter is not necessarily made only from leftover yolks.
Once rum has been added, the batter is commonly rested in the refrigerator rather than baked right away. For example, one recipe uses 125 grams of flour, 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks for 500 milliliters of milk, and refrigerates the batter for 24 hours. If the vanilla pod is put back into the batter to steep, it continues to impart its aroma while the batter rests. The batter is poured into the molds once it is uniform and has taken on the aroma.
A canelé showing its flutes and browned surface (2017, location unknown). Photo: Rhododendrites / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Filling fluted molds and baking at a high temperature, then lowering it
The fluted mold forms both the outline of the pastry and its crust at the same time. Traditional copper molds conduct heat readily, and some recipes use aluminum molds. So that the pastries can be released from the molds, the insides are thinly coated with fat. Some methods use food-grade beeswax, while others use butter or fat spray; beeswax is not an essential ingredient mixed into the batter.
One way of baking starts at a high temperature, then lowers the temperature and continues baking. In one example, in copper or aluminum molds, baking at 270°C for 10 minutes followed by about 45 minutes at 200°C combines strong initial heat with time afterward to cook the center through. Baking temperatures and times are adjusted to the size of the molds and to the oven.
The exterior in contact with the mold loses moisture, and the browning of the sugar-containing surface deepens. The center keeps a softness that comes from its high milk and egg content. The temperature is adjusted so the crust does not burn too much while the heat cooks through to the soft center. Some recipes remove the canelés from the molds while they are still slightly warm after baking.
The legend of the nuns’ invention and the history of the canauliers
A story has been handed down that nuns of the Annonciade received egg yolks left over from clarifying wine and flour spilled at the port, and baked pastries for the poor. Egg whites were indeed used in one method of clarifying wine. However, the story that the nuns devised today’s fluted canelé is passed down as a legend.
Another pastry thought to be connected with the canelé is the canaule. In the 17th century, the canauliers, who made unleavened bread-like pastries containing milk and sugar, grew in number, and in 1663 they formed a guild. In the 18th century they came into conflict with pastry cooks, and by the 19th century there were no longer any artisans who specialized in making canaules. Although the names are similar, the canaules of that time differed in ingredients and shape from today’s fluted, rum-flavored canelé, and no continuity in how they were made is known.
A Bordeaux symbol with two surviving spellings
The name canelé appears in a novel by Jean Balde published in 1937. In the 1980s, promotion by pastry shops and the city spread awareness of the pastry, and in 1985 a trade association chose canelé, spelled with a single n, as its collective trademark. The original spelling, cannelé, is also used.
The French word cannelé means “fluted” or “having grooves or deep ridges,” and the dictionary of the Académie française also lists its use as a noun for the Bordeaux pastry baked in a fluted mold. The word aptly describes the fluted shape of today’s canelé.
Popularity in Japan and the shift to small take-home gifts
In Japan, the canelé became known in the late 1990s through Western-style pastry shops and bakeries, and food expert Tomoko Ogura has written that renewed attention spread from shops in the Kansai region from 2012 onward. In the renewed boom around 2022, the range of flavors and appearances also widened, with canelés that add matcha or fruit to the batter and canelés topped with cream or fruit in the hollow on top.
The reasons for making small canelés also relate to the occasions on which they are eaten. Daniel, in Hyogo, told an interviewer that it originally served canelés as small sweets at the end of a French restaurant’s course meal, and because the size found in France was too large, it ordered small molds from Europe. In response to requests to take them home, it later expanded into a baked-goods shop. This is one example of a small Bordeaux pastry growing from an after-meal bite into a gift chosen from a variety of flavors.
Glossary
- Jean Balde
- The pen name of Jeanne Alleman, a writer from Bordeaux. She mentioned the canelé by name in a novel published in 1937.
- Clarification
- The process of removing cloudiness from a liquid. In winemaking, one method uses egg whites.
- Beeswax
- Wax derived from honeybee combs. One method is to coat the inside of molds with food-grade beeswax to make baked goods easier to release.
- Tomoko Ogura
- A food expert who has written about the popularity and evolution of the canelé in Japan.
- Collective trademark
- A trademark used by the members of a particular organization to identify goods or services.
- Canauliers
- Bordeaux artisans of the 17th century who made the old canaule containing milk and sugar. A connection in method with today’s canelé has not been confirmed.
Parade'sCanelé de Bordeaux
The Canelé de Bordeaux is a traditional French baked sweet with the aroma of browned butter and rum, made by Cafe & Sweets Parade Kyoto, a Western-style pastry shop in Fushimi-Momoyama, Kyoto.
This grown-up treat is full of browned butter and fragrant rum. The canelé is a traditional baked sweet handed down in convents in the Bordeaux region of France. Because of its fluted, bell-shaped appearance, it was named after a French word meaning “fluted.”
We bake each canelé crisp and fragrant on the outside. Inside, it is made with high-quality, purely domestically produced Japanese “Sakura” eggs and vanilla, giving it a gentle sweetness and a soft, chewy texture. The ingredients are simple, but every canelé is carefully made by hand, one by one. We hope you enjoy the flavor that comes from this care. We recommend warming it briefly in a toaster oven. This makes the caramelized surface even crispier and brings the texture and aroma closer to freshly baked.
Parade'sBurnt Honey Canelé / Canelé au miel brûlé
The Burnt Honey Canelé is made by Cafe & Sweets Parade Kyoto, a pastry shop in Fushimi-Momoyama, Kyoto. It uses pure domestic Japanese honey and has a crisp, fragrant brûlée-style finish.
This canelé is made with a generous amount of aged, high-purity, pure domestic Japanese honey from Higuchi Apiary (Higuchi Yohoen), which has a shop in Fushimi, Kyoto.
The canelé is baked until fragrant, with a crisp outside and a chewy, moist inside. For the topping, we caramelize organic sugar with a torch, which adds a crisp, crackly texture like that of a crème brûlée. We hope you enjoy the gently rich honey flavor that fills your mouth.
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