Baba au Rhum

France

Also known as Rum Baba

About Baba au Rhum

Baba au Rhum is a small, light yeast cake soaked in a rum-flavored sugar syrup until it is moist and glossy. It is a classic of French pâtisserie, usually glazed with apricot jam and served with whipped cream or Chantilly cream.

The cake has Polish roots. It is linked to Stanisław Leszczyński, the exiled Polish king who settled in Lorraine, and to the Parisian pastry cook Nicolas Stohrer, whose shop on Rue Montorgueil opened in 1730. The rum-soaked baba as we know it was being made there by the 1830s.

The dough is rich with eggs and butter, but it bakes into a springy, open crumb that can drink up plenty of syrup without falling apart. The baba later became especially popular in Naples, where it is sold in pastry shops on almost every street.

Ingredients

• flour
• yeast
• eggs
• butter
• sugar
• rum
• apricot glaze
• whipped cream