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Dessert

Baba Puddlng

A yeast cake with cherries, cream, and rum or brandy, baked in a mold.

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 Puddlng

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 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 the hollow and mix to form a light dough.

  3. Knead the dough well and let it rise in a warm place.

  4. In a larger bowl, sift 6 ounces of flour and make a hole in the center.

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

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

  7. Incorporate the first dough and work for 5 more minutes.

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

  9. Cover the bowl with a warm cloth and let it rise for 3 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Butter a baba mold and drop a few cherries in the bottom.

  2. Fill the mold three-quarters full and let it rise until full.

  3. 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 structure of the dough that holds the rise.
German yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the crumb as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.
Rum or brandy
Adds a strong aroma and flavor to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before baking. The yeast needs time in a warm place to build gas and fill the dough. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while the rise before baking gives the baba its light, open crumb.

“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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