Kim-Joy's canelés have a crunchy outside and a custardy middle.
Ingredients
Santa isn’t at the centre of Christmas celebrations in Iceland: trolls are. Icelandic children place a shoe by their bedroom window and are visited by the 13 ‘Yule lads’ in the 13 days before Christmas.
Kim-Joy has taken inspiration from this tradition with the decoration for her Christmas canelé recipe – a type of French pastry with a caramelised outside and soft, custardy centre.
Canelé Christmas trolls recipe from Christmas With Kim-Joy
Ingredients:
(Serves 12-14)
500ml whole milk
1tbsp vanilla bean paste (or 2 vanilla pods)
200g caster or granulated sugar
2 medium eggs
2 medium egg yolks
50g salted butter, melted, plus extra butter or plant-based butter (or 60% beeswax and 40% butter), for greasing
100g strong white bread flour (to make gluten free, substitute with gluten-free flour plus ¼tsp xanthan gum)
3½tbsp rum
For the icing:
100g icing sugar, plus extra to adjust consistency
20ml water, plus extra to adjust consistency
For the whipped cream:
100ml double cream
20g icing sugar
Food dyes
For the decorations:
Sprinkles
Edible eyes
Edible gold and silver paint
Hard pretzels, Matchsticks or Pocky
Method
Method:
1. Add the milk and vanilla to a small pan and heat until starting to simmer, then turn off the heat and leave to cool for about three minutes.
2. Meanwhile, whisk the sugar, eggs and egg yolks together in a large bowl. Melt the butter in the microwave for about 15 seconds, then whisk into the sugar and eggs until combined.
3. Put the flour (or gluten-free flour plus xanthan gum) in a separate bowl. Add one-quarter of the milk mixture to the eggs and whisk in. Add one-quarter of the flour and keep whisking. Keep alternating and mixing well until everything is incorporated. Finally, add the rum and whisk again. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, then chill in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
4. When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 250°C, then coat your moulds. You can use any type of mould, but copper ones will give the best results. If using silicone or metal moulds, just coat with a little butter. You can use just butter in the copper moulds too, though the canelés will have a shinier crust and slide out more easily if you use a 60% beeswax and 40% butter mixture, all melted together (just melt in short bursts in the microwave). In order to get a thin and even coating, pour the mixture into the mould, then pour it straight back out.
5. Fill the moulds with the batter, about 1cm from the top, and bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 180°C and bake for a further 45 minutes. The canelés should be a very deep, dark and a caramelised brown colour on top.
6. Remove from the moulds straight away, tapping if they are a little resistant to come out. Place on a wire rack to cool.
7. To make the icing, whisk the icing sugar and water together in a bowl. Whip the cream with the icing sugar in a separate bowl until soft peaks form. Once the canelés are cool, you can decorate each one in a different way to create your Christmas trolls. Pipe cream on top and decorate like a Christmas tree. Try adding icing drips down the side. You can add sprinkles and eyes to these to decorate or paint them once set. Stick in pretzels, Matchsticks or Pocky for arms and ears. Have fun and see what you can come up with!
Christmas With Kim-Joy: A Festive Collection Of Edible Cuteness by Kim-Joy is published by Quadrille. Photography by Ellis Parrinder. Available now
