Baba au Rhum cake
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| Type | Cake |
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| Place of origin | France |
| Region or state | Lorraine |
| Main ingredients | Eggs, milk, butter, rum |
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A rum baba or baba au rhum is a small yeast cake saturated in syrup made with hard liquor, usually rum, and sometimes filled with whipped cream or pastry cream. It is most typically made in individual servings (about a two-inch-tall, slightly tapered cylinder) but sometimes can be made in larger forms similar to those used for Bundt cakes.
The batter for baba is even richer than brioche batter, and includes eggs, milk and butter.
The original form of the baba was similar to the babka, a tall, cylindrical yeast cake (babka is still cooked in Ukraine, Poland and in Ukrainian and Polish communities over the world). The name means "old woman" or "grandmother" in the Slavic languages; babka is a diminutive of baba.
The modern baba au rhum (rum baba), with dried fruit and soaking in rum, was invented in the rue Montorgueil in Paris, France, in 1835 or before. Today, the word "baba" in France and almost everywhere else outside eastern Europe usually refers specifically to the rum baba.
The original baba was introduced into France in the 18th century via Lorraine. This is attributed to Stanislaus I, the exiled king of Poland. The Larousse Gastronomique has reported that Stanislaus had the idea of soaking a dried Gugelhupf (a cake roughly similar to the baba and common in Alsace-Lorraine when he arrived there) or a baba with alcoholic spirit. Another version is that when Stanislaus brought back a baba from one of his voyages it had dried up. Nicolas Stohrer, one of his pâtissiers (or possibly just apprentice pâtissiers at the time), solved the problem by adding Malaga wine, saffron, dried and fresh raisin and crême pâtissière. The writer Courchamps stated in 1839 that the descendants of Stanislaus served the baba with a saucière containing sweet Malaga wine mixed with one sixth of Tanaisie liqueur.
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Wikipedia