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I am experimenting with making canelé. All recipes I've found call for the batter to be made and left in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours before baking, but none say why.

One guess is that maybe the batter needs to reach a certain temperature get the right consistency while baking (caramelized exterior and moist interior). But I don't think that it would need anywhere close to 24 hours to reach the fridge temperature.

Does anyone know the reasoning or the origin of the 24 hour time, or if it really makes a difference between leaving them in for, say, 6 hours?

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    Considering the two very-well researched recipes I've just seen recommend 48 hours over 24, I think cutting the time is a very bad choice. As to why, no clue... but I wonder if it relates to the process of Yorkshire puddings which also have a long (though not as long) rest period.
    – Catija
    May 15, 2017 at 3:08
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    Thank you for your research and reply! After a bit more research, I found someone who said that the reason for the long time is so that the flour can fully absorb the liquid, and that without it the canelé won't have the same consistency. They also said cutting back the time was a bad choice. I'm going to do some more research and if I can come up with some good references I'll leave an answer to my question, although I would still be very happy to get an answer from someone else
    – Darren
    May 15, 2017 at 13:04
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    cookingscienceguy.com/pages/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/… may help shed some light on this
    – user110084
    May 15, 2017 at 19:54
  • canele is tricky, a batter that works well for minis is often too soft and lacking texture inside for bigger ones. You need to play around with resting time, temperature and may be agitation.
    – user110084
    May 16, 2017 at 15:46

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I am pretty sure it is for cross-linking to form gluten and possibly rearrangements of other proteins also. As far as I can work out, there is no impact to either caramelisation or maillard. Resting time and temperature do need fine tuning for different sizes though which is quite logical and may explain different recipe timing. So, do look out for that. Temperature plays a part in the reaction kinetics. Again, not looked into it, but chilling suggests better to slow things down and possibly to prevent unintended fermentation. 5C from experience is perhaps the upper limit.

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