A canelé is a small French pastry flavored with rum and vanilla with a soft and tender custard center and a dark, thick caramelized crust. It takes the shape of a small, striated cylinder up to five centimeters in height with a depression at the top. A specialty of the Bordeaux region of France, today it is widely available in pâtisseries in France and abroad.
Historically, the word was also spelled cannelé. The spelling was regularized in 1985.