Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Baba Au Naturel
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Make the dough
Prepare the dough like brioche, but slightly lighter.
When the dough has risen, mix in the sugar, raisins, candied citron, and saffron.
If the mixture is too thick, add 1 or 2 eggs to lighten it.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a mold, filling it only halfway.
Place it in a warm spot to rise.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 1 hour.
Serve warm or cold.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + saffrontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + saffrontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together447 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the baba its structure and airy crumb.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and loosen a thick mixture so it rises and bakes lighter.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown lightly in the oven.
- Muscat and corinth raisins
- Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Filling the mold only halfway. The dough keeps rising during the warm proof and in the oven. Overfilling can overflow the mold or leave the centre underbaked, so leaving room for expansion matters.
Swap the saffron
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Saffronthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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