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Dessert

Baba Au Rhum

A yeast-leavened cake flavored with rum, saffron, raisins, currants, and citron peel, baked slowly until reddish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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 Rhum

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Mix ¼ pound of flour with 3 teaspoons of yeast and ½ cup of tepid water to form a soft paste.

  2. Cover and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Make the dough

  1. On a clean surface, place ¾ pound of flour and make a well in the center.

  2. Sprinkle ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt over the flour, then add 6 ounces of sugar, ½ cup of tepid milk or cream, 4 eggs, ⅓ cup of rum, and saffron.

  3. Incorporate the risen yeast mixture into the flour mixture and mix well.

Bake

  1. Butter a mold that is 2-3 times larger than the paste and pour the mixture in.

  2. Optionally, mix in ¼ pound of raisins, 2 ounces of currants, and ½ ounce of citron peel before baking.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 hours until it is a nice reddish color.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Saffron + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

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

  5. Rum + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen dough together as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives it an airy crumb.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and moisture to the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the crust brown during baking.
Rum
Adds flavor and moisture to the dough.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven until reddish. A slow oven lets the cake cook through to the center before the crust over-browns. Judge doneness by color and time together, since a dough this rich can look done on the outside while still being underbaked inside.

Swap the saffron

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, egg, rum, raisin, currant):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Saffronthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, egg, rum, raisin, currant. 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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