Seasonal Canelés

regardless of what you add, it always translates to tasty

I was at the doctor recently and ended up waiting several minutes for my consultation. Eventually the doctor arrived and said “hello, I am doctor, sorry for keeping you waiting”.

“That’s ok” I said, “I am patient”.

One of us exploded in laughter, and it was a laughter which lasted for a good few minutes. Once finally able to collect myself, I noticed her looking strangely at me, as if to check “are you quite ok”?

I looked askance right back at her, wondering if she did not catch the joke, or whether, even worse, that she had woked¹ up with no sense of humour at all.

But I then suddenly realised that throughout this entire exchange we had been speaking in Norwegian.

One recipe which won’t be lost in translation, no matter who you serve it to is this innovative variation on a Canelé Bordelaise.

Follow the original recipe all the way up to the addition of the rum and vanilla and instead replace this with a star anise, 2 cloves, a cinammon stick, a strip of orange peel and brandy instead of the quantity of rum. These give your Canelé a wintery and seasonal flavour. Perfect for those days in February when the winter seems endless.

Method & Ingredients

Follow all the steps in the original Canelé recipe.

Replace the rum and vanilla with the following:

• 1 star anise 2 cloves, a cinnamon stick, a strip of orange peel, and brandy (replacing the rum).

• For the very best results leave the mix covered for 72 hours.

Note:

You can also experiment with other variations. I recently had a dinner party where we started with Negronis and Old fashioned cocktails and for dessert ended the affair with Negroni & Old fashioned Canelés. Instead of rum and vanilla, I replaced the ingredients with those for a good quality Negroni or Old fashioned cocktail (including the obligatory strip of orange peel).

Since the addition of vanilla and rum is the last step, you can at this stage just separate the mixture into several bowls and, adjusting the amounts above, make a batch with any number of different flavours. This avoids wasting an entire batch on experimentation. After all, eggs are so bloody expensive these days.

1. Those who awaken and find themselves woke often also find that they have misplaced any sense of humour entirely. If you are concerned that you have awoken woke then tell yourself the above joke. If you fail to laugh then you have clearly awoken woke. Unfortunately the condition is considered chronic, but sources on the dark web offer a number of unproven natural remedies. These include watching World War II documentaries on the History Channel, cancelling your Disney+ subscription and following Elon Musk on twitter.