It was this thread that got me to try making Cannelé. I had never had them, but I figured that anything that generated this much discussion must be worth at least a try! I used Paula's recipe and read pretty much this whole thread. I use copper molds, a convection oven, Italian type '00' flour and let the dough rest for 24 hours. And the results (after some practice) have been supurb! So, thank you everyone! Early on in the process of learning, I felt that the insides were not as creamy and custardy as I would have liked. That problem solved itself when I accidentally set the oven for 350 degrees F instead of the 380 that I had been using. (My oven only lets me set Fahrenheit temperatures in 10 degree increments.) After 20 minutes I discovered my mistake and turned the temperature up to 380 and hoped for the best. Wow! Major difference. The outside had a much more long-lasting* and satisfying crunch, and the insides were truly custard creamy. The end product looks just like a cannelé should, but they do look very different while they are cooking. They don't rise and sink in their molds during cooking, and there is a lot of bubbling and boiling of the "white oil" around the edges, along with a certain amount of "perking" (like in an old-fashioned percolator coffee pot) of the tops of the cannelé in the early stages of the cooking. So, something new that those of you that like to experiment might like to try. The other thing I have noticed is that for each day I let dough rest I need to subtract a goodly amount of cooking time; something like 7+ minutes per day of rest. *Still pleasantly crunchy into their second day, although, of course, less so than in their first few hours.
