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Baba with Rum Syrup

A sweet yeast bread with currants, baked and topped with a 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. Dry the flour thoroughly.

  2. Sieve 4 oz of flour into a warm basin. Add the salt. Make a well in the center.

  3. Mix the yeast with a little warm milk. Add the mixture to the flour. Knead into a smooth dough. Cover with a cloth. Let it rise in a warm place.

  4. Sieve the remaining flour into a large basin. Make a well. Add the salt, sugar, warmed butter, and the rest of the milk. Beat with your hand for 15 minutes. Cover with a cloth.

  5. Once the dough has doubled in size, mix the contents of both basins together. Add the currants. Knead lightly for 15 minutes.

Bake

  1. Prepare 1 large or 8 small well-buttered molds. Sprinkle the bottoms and sides with a few currants. Fill them halfway with dough. Let the dough rise near the fire until it nearly reaches the top of the molds.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C). When done, turn onto a sieve.

Make the rum syrup and serve

  1. Boil the sugar and water together until reduced. Add the jam. Boil for 10 minutes. Strain. Return to the pan. Add the rum. Bring to a boil.

  2. Baste well with rum syrup. Place in a hot dish. Pour the syrup over. Serve hot.

  3. Use as directed.

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

Flour
Forms the dough's structure, setting the crumb once baked.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise, giving the baba its light texture.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Milk
Moistens the dough and helps it become smooth and elastic.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps browning in the oven.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavor to the syrup that soaks the baked cakes.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise near the fire until it nearly reaches the top of the molds. Yeast gas expands the dough, so under-proofing leaves a dense baba, while over-proofing can collapse it during baking. Stopping near the rim gives room for final expansion 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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