A canelé is a small French pastry with a soft and tender custard center and a dark, thick caramelized crust. The dessert, which is in the shape of small, striated cylinder approximately two inches in height, is a specialty of the Bordeaux region of France but can often be found in Parisian patisseries as well. Made from egg, sugar, milk and flour flavored with rum and vanilla, the custard batter is baked in a mold, giving the canelé a caramelized crust and custard-like inside. Legend has it that that canelés were started during the landing of the boats of flour on the quays of Bordeaux. But more realistically, they would have been created and invented in the XVIIIth century by the nuns of the convent of Annonciades, in Bordeaux, today convent of the Mercy, under the name of canelas or canelons. Those first canelas did not still look like canelés yet: they were small cakes of very thin dough rolled around a stick and fried.