Rum Babas- France #143

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 Rum Babas-France #143

Rum Babas are individual yeast cakes soaked in a rum syrup, and topped with a chantilly cream. Sounds good to me.         




Cake:

  • 8 oz flour
  • 7 g. Fast action yeast
  • 1/2 tsp. Salt
  • 50 g. Sugar, plus extra for lining tins
  • 2 medium eggs
  • 4-1/2 T. Milk
  • 3-1/2 oz. butter, softened
Syrup:
  • 9 oz. sugar
  • 3-4 T. Dark Rum
Chantilly Cream:
  • 9 fl. Oz. Double cream
  • 3-1/2 oz. confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 vanilla pod, seeds out
  1. Cake: Place the flour in a large bowl.
  2. Place the yeast on one side of the bowl and the salt on the other.  (Make sure the salt is not placed on top of the yeast, as it can kill it, making it inactive).
  3. Add the sugar and stir everything together with a spoon until evenly mixed.
  4. Mix together the milk and eggs until well combined.
  5. Add 3/4 of the combined eggs and milk to the flour and stir to combine.
  6. Mix in the rest of the liquid and knead the dough on a worktop until it’s smooth and glossy, this will take approximately 10 minutes.
  7. Add in the softened butter and work it through the dough thoroughly until it’s silky and stretchy.  This should take approximately 6 minutes.
  8. Place the dough back into a bowl and cover with cling film.  Set the dough aside to rise for at least an hour, until doubled in size.
  9. Grease and sugar the four 11cm/4-1/2” fluted rum baba tins. Adding sugar will help the fragile sponges come out of the mounds.
  10. Turn the dough out of the bowl, and knock it back by kneading it a few times.
  11. Place the dough into a piping bag with a large plain nozzle.  Pipe the dough into the four mounds.  Try and get them all as equal as possible.
  12. Preheat oven 350F.
  13. Allow to prove for a second time until the dough has expanded almost to the top.  Be careful not to over-prove at this stage, or you will get a muffin top around the edges.
  14. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes.
  15. Syrup:  Put the sugar and rum in a small saucepan with 7 oz. of water and bring to a rolling boil.
  16. When the babas are cooked, take them out of the oven and allow to cool a little before carefully removing the cakes from their tins.  They will be very fragile.
  17. Place the babas onto a dish and pour over half the syrup.  allow them to soak up all of the liquid; then turn them over and repeat with the rest of the liquid.  Transfer to the fridge to chill.
  18. Chantilly Cream: Whip the cream with confectioners’ sugar and vanilla seeds.  The cream must be firm enough to pipe and hold its shape on top of the babas.  Transfer the cream to a piping bag and keep in the fridge until needed.
  19. To serve, pipe the Chantilly cream, using a star nozzle, into the middle of the babas.  Garnish with the mixed fruit.
Results: These little cakes were very good. Once more this is a recipe that requires special pans. Once more I didn’t have or buy them.  Instead I used Créeme Brûlée pots, which worked just fine. I didn’t need to pipe the cake batter into the pots. I also didn’t pipe the chantilly cream on top of the cakes. No one knew the difference.
Bottom Line: I don’t think I will make these again but you never know. We all agreed that they tasted good, especially chilled. The rum flavor is not very strong. However, that’s easily remedied, just add more.
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