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Baba Chaud, Au Madère

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Baba Chaud, Au Madère

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a fluted cylindrical mold with butter.

  3. Fill the mold two-thirds full with baba dough.

  4. Let the dough rise in a warm place until the mold is full.

  5. Place the mold in the oven and bake for 40 minutes.

  6. Soak the raisins in warm water.

  7. In a saucepan, combine the soaked raisins, candied citrus peels, candied almonds, and diced pineapple.

  8. Add 3 cups of syrup and 2 cups of Madeira wine to the fruit mixture.

  9. Bring the mixture to a boil and keep it warm in a double boiler.

  10. Once the baba is baked, remove it from the oven and level the top.

  11. Unmold the baba onto a wire rack.

  12. Soak the baba with boiling syrup mixed with a few tablespoons of Madeira and a small glass of rum infused with zest.

  13. Let the baba drain well.

  14. Cover the baba with orange glaze.

  15. Fill the center with some of the prepared fruits and arrange the rest around it.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, raisin, lemon, orange, almond, syrup, madeira wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, raisin, lemon, orange, almond, syrup, madeira wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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