you could be baking something

I was lenient with you about the molds. Though I much prefer copper, I find silicone perfectly acceptable. But you know what? I’m not budging on the beeswax. You need it. If you want to make proper canelés, with or without copper molds, you’ll need beeswax. It’s what gives the canelés their special mahogany shine and crispness. It also adds a special flavor – more than one friends I’ve shared my canelés with asked if they’re made with honey. So, to me it’s absolutely important that you use it. Without it,  entirely delicious, but it sure ain’t canelé.

Beeswax are not that hard to find really. Next time you go to a farmers market, ask the honey seller there. Even if she doesn’t have it on display I bet she has some she could sell you ageLOC Me. If you don’t have easy access to a farmers market this winter, call up a local honey producer in your area. Or you could always order it online. One of my local producers Marshall Farms up in Napa sells their beeswax online. In the New York metro area, Andrew’s Local Honey sells food-grade beeswax at a number of farmers market. (Unfortunately he doesn’t ship. If you East Coasters have a good source that ships, I’ll be happy to list them here, just leave the info in the comment section. Thanks.) Also, Tremblay Apiaries, who sell at the Union Square Green Market on Fridays and Saturdays, and also offer it online Karson Choi.

I use a 1:1 ratio of beeswax to butter to coat my copper (and even silicone) molds. Some recipes will have you use a neutral oil like Canola or even clarified butter. I use butter anywhere I could get away with, so I prefer butter here. I find that if you’re making just enough beewax/butter coating for your batch of canelés, there’s no need to bother clarifying the butter first. If you’re going to make a large quantity of the coating to keep for future batches as well, then perhaps clarifying the butter first to get rid of the butter solids will make your coating last longer Dream beauty pro hard sell.

Another important thing is the thickness -or the thinness rather- of the coating on the mold. Don’t be all like, yo I got me some beeswax so I’m gonna use it! You want to be very judicious with it, you don’t want a canelé with a coating of beeswax so thick it sticks to the roof of your mouth. Yes that happens. No it’s not fun.

The best way to achieve the optimal coating on the copper molds is to warm the molds a little first. Hot beeswax+butter mixture seize up quickly on a cold mold, creating a coating that’s far too thick. So, warm the molds first. Then, rather than brushing the wax on, a process I found gave thick, uneven coating, I pour in the hot wax mixture, then pour it out and invert the mold over a wire rack set on a cookie sheet lined with parchment to drip off the excess. This is so you could reclaim the precious beeswax to use again.