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Baba with Rum Syrup

A yeast cake with currants, baked and soaked in rum syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baba with Rum Syrup

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Sift 8 ounces of flour into a warm bowl, add salt, and make a well in the center.

  2. Mix yeast with a little warm milk, add to the flour, and knead into a smooth dough.

  3. Cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

  4. Sift the remaining flour into a large bowl, make a well, and add salt, sugar, warmed butter, and remaining milk.

  5. Beat the mixture by hand for 15 minutes and cover with a cloth.

  6. Once the dough has risen, combine both mixtures, add currants, and knead lightly for 15 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Prepare one large or eight small well-buttered molds, sprinkle with currants, and fill half with dough.

  2. Let rise near the fire until nearly at the top of the mold, then bake at 350°F (175°C).

Soak and serve

  1. Turn out onto a sieve and baste with rum syrup.

  2. Serve hot with additional syrup poured over.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Apricot + rumtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the baba its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, softening the crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the dough stay soft.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully before baking. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce the gas that expands the dough. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse in the oven.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, milk, apricot, rum):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, apricot, rum. 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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