Churrelés: Cannelés Meet Mexican Churros

Hi everyone! This is Gab from Artful Desperado. I’m super excited to be a new contributor to The French Barn Blog where I’ll be sharing recipes, kitchen experiments, and lots of design inspiration from around the web.

For this first post (yay!) I wanted to start with a bang, and that bang comes in the shape of Churrelés. I know you may be saying “WTF, dude, for real” but YES this is for real, you are not dreaming! Mexico and France have come together to create this sweet treat, and though there were no formal diplomats in my kitchen baking with me, I take it upon myself to make this baking friendship official.

So here’s how it goes: you first make a batch of classic, good ol’ cannelés – you know? Those sweet, chewy, and almost custardy treats that are a French staple. Then, you give them the royal Mexican churro treatment by sprinkling them with cinnamon sugar and drizzling them with dark chocolate. Oh mon dieu!! Or Ay dios mio!!!? Oh and worry not, this combo is not extremely sweet as the canneles don’t really have much sugar in the batter.

These Churrelés are SUPER good looking and will definitely impress your guests for the holidays. They are a bit labour intensive, but they are so so worth it. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be making them in batches! Oh and by the way, at the end of the recipe I provide a few tips on troubleshooting Churrelés mishaps.

PS. If you are like “screw this, too much time in the kitchen” then go get some canneles at the bakery (I even heard Trader Joe’s sells them in their frozen section), and simply add the “churro” cinnamon-sugar and chocolate part. Either way, you’ll be pretty pleased with the results.

PSS. If you have your own foolproof recipe, go for it! Canneles are one of those things that need to be customized depending on the oven and even the humidity.

Let’s get to it!

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Churrelés: Cannelés Meet Mexican Churros

Ingredients

• FOR THE CANNELES:
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 whole eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup dark rum
• Cannele molds (NOTE: this recipe was adapted for silicon molds)
• FOR THE CHURRO TOPPING:
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup good quality dark chocolate, shaved
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream

Directions

1. DAY BEFORE BAKING:In a small sauce pan combine the milk, vanilla, and butter and bring to a simmer, remove from heat and let it cool for a few minutes.
2. Combine the salt, flour, and sugar in a small bowl and set aside.
3. Whisk the eggs and eggs yolks together for a couple minutes, then pour over flour mix and gently whisk to incorporate until you form a paste. Slowly whisk in the milk and butter mix and stir until smooth. Let the batter cool down completely at room temperature, once ready, cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.
4. DAY OF BAKING: Preheat the oven to 450F
5. Remove the batter from the fridge, let it stand at room temp. for 20 minutes and gently stir if needed (it may have separated).
6. Get a baking sheet and place the silicon molds on top of it. Pour batter into the molds and leave about 1 cm of space at the top so that they don't overflow. Place the canneles in the oven and bake at 450F for 25-30 min (until they start to turn a nice dark maple colour). Then reduce the temperature to 400F and bake for another 35-40 minutes. If the canneles start to brown too much, put some tin foil on top of them to help them bake evenly without burning. Remove caneles from the oven and let them cool inside the mold (otherwise they'll get wonky). Once cool, remove from molds and set aside.
7. Combine the sugar and cinnamon and place on a plate. Roll fresh canneles on cinnamon sugar until nicely coated. Set aside.
8. Place the dark chocolate and heavy cream on a double boiler (a bowl on top of barely simmering water). Let the chocolate melt, remove from heat and stir until shiny, about 2 minutes. Spoon melted chocolate on top of canneles.
9. Serve right away and enjoy!

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NOTES:
1. I didn’t coat the silicon molds with butter or oil. I found that the canneles don’t “cling” to the mold as good and they got too puffy.
2. If using copper molds (you fancy pants), you may need to do the whole edible beeswax and butter thing, also called ‘White Oil’ which is waaay over my head. You can read more about it here.
3. If the tops turn too pale, then next time you will need to bake them further in the oven and reduce the temperature. A hack could be to re-bake them as it for a little bit, but they may dry.
4. Do you need to let the batter rest? Yes sir! If you don’t you’ll get canneles that will look like gruyere cheese with huge holes. Letting the batter rest helps to achieve the custardy inside we all love.

Until next time!