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Rum Babas with Poached Pineapple & Vanilla Ice Cream

A restaurant-style pudding you can make ahead for a relaxed end to your dinner party

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Star anise and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 84 recipes mention both. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6
Cook35 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Warm the milk until lukewarm, then stir in 2 tbsp caster sugar and the dried yeast. Leave for 5 minutes until foamy.

  2. Mix the flour, beaten eggs, yeast mixture and cooled melted butter into a soft dough. Knead until smooth, cover and leave in a warm place until doubled.

  3. Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Grease six small baba moulds or a muffin tin with butter, divide the dough between them and let it rise until doubled. Bake 12 to 15 minutes until golden and cooked through.

  4. For the syrup, dissolve the 500g caster sugar in water over low heat, then add the star anise, bay leaves and coriander seeds. Simmer 5 minutes, remove from the heat and stir in most of the rum, reserving a little.

  5. Soak the warm babas in the warm syrup, turning them until well saturated, about 5 minutes. Lift out and drain on a rack.

  6. Melt the optional butter in a wide pan and cook the pineapple rings for 2 to 3 minutes per side. Add a pinch of optional black pepper, spoon over some syrup and simmer 3 minutes.

  7. Whip the double cream with the icing sugar and vanilla seeds to soft peaks. Spoon into a freezer container and freeze for several hours until firm, stirring once after an hour if possible.

  8. Serve each baba with a slice of poached pineapple, a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of the reserved rum.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Star anise + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together84 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Pineapple + rumtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Vanilla + rumtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Pineapple + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Milk + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,175 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, flour, egg, butter, star anise, pineapple):

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  3. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, egg, butter, star anise, pineapple. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).