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Dessert

Baba Pudding

A yeast cake with cherries, rum, and cream, baked in a molded pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Pudding

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.

Make the first dough

  1. Sift 2 ounces of flour into a bowl and make a hollow in the center.

  2. Add ½ ounce of German yeast diluted with warm milk to form a light dough.

  3. Knead the dough well.

  4. Let the dough rise in a warm place.

Make the final dough

  1. In a larger bowl, sift 6 ounces of flour.

  2. Make a hole in the center of the sifted flour.

  3. Add ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt, 2 ounces of sugar, a little milk, 3 ounces of butter, and 4 eggs.

  4. Knead for 10 minutes, lifting the dough with each movement.

  5. Incorporate the first dough into the second dough.

  6. Work the dough for 5 more minutes.

  7. Finish with ½ cup of cream, 8 ounces of dried cherries, and ⅔ cup of rum or brandy.

  8. Cover with a warm cloth.

  9. Let the dough rise for 3 hours.

Bake

  1. Butter a baba mold and drop a few cherries in it.

  2. Fill the mold three-quarters full.

  3. Let the dough rise until the mold is full.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
German yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and moisture, helping the dough set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and enriches the flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and golden browning in the oven.
Rum or brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and moistens the baba once soaked.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until the mold is full. Under-proofed dough bakes dense and heavy, while over-proofed dough can collapse. The rise depends on active yeast, so the dough should be left until it has grown to fill the mold before baking.

“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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