Most good things have to come to an end eventually, and the final part of our honeymoon took us from Lyon to the beautiful area of Saint-Émilion near Bordeaux. It's one of the oldest wine regions in France, dating back to when the Romans planted vines there in the 2nd century. 

We stayed at an amazing guest house right in the middle of a vineyard, walked our way through the cellars of Château Guadet, and ate some fantastic food. 

For the last part of this recipe mini-series, I thought I'd go with an appropriate favourite of mine - Cannelés de Bordeaux. I've been making these for a few years now, and there are two ways to go; one method will produce something delicious, the other something delicious and give you that traditional dark crust.

I must admit that I'd never eaten a real Cannelé from Bordeaux until we visited the area this year and, just like with Baba au Rhum, the French favour a younger, fruitier rum in their recipes. Still delicious, but I find the taste of a more spiced / sugar led rum such as Captain Morgan gives better results.

Step 1: Make the mix

Put the milk into a large heavy-based saucepan with your vanilla, and bring to the boil over a medium heat. As soon as it hits boiling point, remove from the heat and slide in your butter to let it melt as the mixture cools.

In one bowl, lightly beat the eggs and egg yolks together.  In a second bowl (one large enough to take the entire mix) gently sift your flour and icing sugar together, then put a tea towel underneath to help stop it from spinning around during mixing. Pour the eggs and rum into the sugar/flour mix and use a spatula to gently combine. 

When your milk has cooled to the point where it feels just warm, start pouring this into the large bowl with the other ingredients, stirring with the spatula to combine as you pour. Try not to whisk the mix, but beat it enough so that there are no lumps.

Cover the bowl with cling film, and place in your fridge for at least 24 hours.

Step 2: Prepare the moulds

This recipe is for 4 batches of 8 - but if you have 16 moulds and two ovens, then you can scale it up. I'd not recommend baking more than 8 per oven though, as the initial cold of the moulds from the freezer and cooled mix will reduce the temperature too much. 

As I say, there are two ways to go here. If you just want a delicious Cannelé with a decent crust, then you can get away with a silicone mould coated in butter. You might get a "white bottom" doing this, but the taste will still be great. If you'd prefer to travel down the traditional route, you'll have to get some beeswax and a set of copper moulds. I bought mine from a French website some years ago - the price has gone up since then, but they do drop under 8 Euros when on offer.

The first thing to do depends on your mould type. For silicone, you want the butter to coat more thickly - so place the moulds in the freezer. For copper, you want the opposite; so place them in an oven at 200° C on a pair of stacked baking trays.

In either case, the next thing is to clarify your butter. Take 120g of unsalted butter and gently melt it down completely in a small saucepan, then let it cool very slightly. Skim off the fat floating on the surface with a spoon, then either gently pour the liquid butter from the pan into a jug, stopping as soon as you see the solids in the base of the pan come to the edge - or, if you have a muslin cloth to hand, pour it through that into the jug instead. You want to clarify the butter so that it doesn't burn in the high heat of the oven later. 

Now you have the butter done ...

For Silicone:

Remove your moulds from the freezer and, working quickly, pour the (still slightly warm) clarified butter into the moulds, turn to coat then invert onto a clean tray to let the butter drip out. When they look coated, place them back in the freezer again for at least 20 minutes.

For Copper:

Get a pan of water on the boil, and place a metal bowl on top (bain-marie). Weigh one stick of your beeswax (these are normally 30g to 34g) and then measure out an equal amount of clarified butter. Pour the measured butter and beeswax stick into the bowl on the heat, stirring occasionally to mix the wax and butter.

While this is happening, place a piece of greaseproof paper on your worktop to protect it (beeswax is very annoying to remove) then place a cooling rack on top of that. Place another cooling rack to the side and, when ready, put the bowl of beeswax mix on that, and take the moulds out of the oven.

Working as quickly as you can, hold one mould with an oven mitt and pour the beeswax mix almost to the top. Immediately pour this back out into the beeswax bowl, rotating as you do to ensure it coats. Quickly invert this over the cooling sheet to allow any excess to drip out. Repeat this with the other 7 moulds as quickly as you can - you may need to re-heat the beeswax. 

When dry, the thickness of beeswax coating should be almost invisible, as shown in the image below - you'll only really notice it if you rub your finger on the inside of the mould. Too thick and you'll get a mouth-full of claggy beeswax. Too little and the crust will burn rather than become caramelised.

Once you're happy with the coating, place the moulds in the freezer for at least 20 minutes, and place the stacked baking sheets back in the oven.

Step 3: Baking

Pre-heat your oven to 200° C. If you've followed the copper instructions above, you should already have a pair of stacked baking trays in the oven - if not, do that while your oven heats up.

When you are ready to bake, take the mix from your fridge and gently stir with a spatula to combine any skin that may have developed on top. If you have an auto-funnel (and this really does make your life easier!) fill it up, or pour your mix into a jug and the moulds out of your freezer.

Fill each mould 2/3 of the way up, then take your stacked trays of the oven and put the moulds on top.

Bake for 40 approximately minutes in total - BUT the whole process requires that you keep an eye on the Cannelés.

For the first 20 minutes, open the oven door at 5 minute intervals; turn the tray to ensure even cooking and, most importantly, if they are puffing up past the top of the moulds you must remove the tray to the top of your oven for a minute to let them drop back. Stop the timer while doing this, and re-start when you put them back.

At the 20 minute mark, the shells should have stopped expanding and the crust started to form. Again, keep watch to ensure they don't burn (it's a fine line between dark crust and cremation).

When you think they're done, you should see they've come away from the sides of the mould, and there is likely to be a little smoke in the oven. 

Immediately invert the moulds onto a cooling rack (if you find "white bottoms" you can put them back in the mould, then back in the oven for another 5 minutes) and leave to cool for at least 30 minutes.

These really are one of my favourite pastries to eat, a kind of baked custard with a soft centre. Give it a try; every single person in your street will be knocking at your door asking what you're making.