Baba au Rhum (French Rum-Soaked Yeast Cake)
Quick answer
- Total time
- 110 min
- Level
- Hard
- Servings
- 8 servings
- Ingredients
- 6
About this dish
Rum leads the flavor here rather than hiding in the background: the baked cakes sit in a syrup made with 100ml of it until they are soaked through to the center.
Read more
A dough rich in butter and eggs bakes into an open, porous crumb, and those pockets are what drink up the syrup. Fully soaked, each cake swells to nearly twice its size. Legend credits the Polish king Stanislaw with soaking a dry kugelhopf in rum; the idea traveled through Naples to Paris, where pastry cooks gave it the small cylindrical shape. Each bite squeezes warm syrup out of the crumb.
Ingredients
Instructions
- 1
Mix 200g bread flour, 5g yeast, 3 eggs, and a pinch of salt, then knead for about 15 minutes until smooth.
The dough will be soft, so avoid adding much extra flour or it can turn dry.
- 2
Add 80g softened butter in several additions, kneading until each portion disappears before adding more.
Continue until the dough looks glossy and elastic, then fill each mold only halfway to leave space for rising.
- 3
Proof the filled molds at room temperature for about 1 hour, until the dough is roughly doubled.
When it begins to rise toward the rim, bake before it overproofs and loses strength.
- 4
Preheat the oven to 180°C and bake for about 20 minutes.
Remove the cakes when the tops are golden brown and the dough has risen about 3 to 4cm above the mold rim.
- 5
In a saucepan, heat water and 150g sugar over medium heat, stirring until the sugar fully dissolves.
Turn off the heat, cool the syrup to about 60°C, then mix in 100ml dark rum so the alcohol does not flash off.
- 6
Unmold the cakes while still warm and submerge them fully in the rum syrup for 20 to 30 minutes.
Press gently so the syrup reaches the center, then serve when the cut surface glistens and syrup releases when pressed.
Use-up ingredient planner
Turn these ingredients into two more meals
The overlap excludes basic seasonings. Open the next recipe and your selected dishes will stay with you.
Korean Sweet Red Bean Bun
Bread flour, Eggs
Bomboloni (Italian Cream-Filled Deep-Fried Yeast Doughnuts)
Bread flour, Eggs
Challah Bread (Jewish Braided Egg Enriched Bread)
Bread flour, Eggs