Canelés de Bordeaux

When it comes to pastry, you cannot get more evocative of Bordeaux" cannelés (pronounced "can-eh-lay"), also spelled canelés. They are a regional pride, and you see them everywhere. They are surprisingly simple pastries, needing only basic ingredients–milk, flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and vanilla. But baking them at high heat in ridged fluted molds transforms them from a liquid batter to deep golden brown treasures. The outer shell is crunchy and crisp while the inside is delicious custard. Cannelés are still rather rare outside of France unless you are lucky enough to have a bakery around that sells the (my SIL is able to get them at a weekly Farmer's Market in Baltimore, lucky her). The task is left up to passionate home bakers to make them. The copper molds are the key--and we bought some in the shop pictured to try our hand at them at home.