How to Bake Rum Babas

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 30 mins+ 1 ½ hours (inactive)

Cooking time: 30 mins

Ingredients needed to make Rum Babas:

For the babas:

• 8 oz strong flour
• 4 ½ tbsp milk
• One package (7 gm) instant yeast
• 2 eggs
• 3 ½ oz butter, softened
• 2 oz sugar, plus more for dusting
• ½ tsp salt

For the syrup:

• 4 tbsp dark rum
• 9 oz caster sugar

Cooking instructions for Rum Babas:

• Place the flour in a large mixing bowl and stir in the sugar plus salt into it until well combined.
• Sprinkle the yeast over it and stir it into the dry mixture, using a spoon.
• Crack the eggs into a separate bowl and whisk them, along with milk, until they blend together into a uniform, pale yellow mixture.
• Pour ¾ of it into the dry mixture and fold them together until well combined into a soft dough.
• Place the dough onto a floured working surface and pour in rest of the whisked mixture into it.
• Knead them together for about 10 minutes until all of the wet mixture is incorporated into it to form a smooth, shiny dough.
• Knead in the softened butter and continue to massage it for about 6 minutes or until the dough become pliable and return it into the large bowl.
• Wrap the surface of the bowl with a cling film and let it rise for an hour or until it doubles in size.
• Butter four 4 ½’’ rum babas and dust it with flour.
• Transfer the dough back onto the working surface and punch it down, before kneading it again for a minute or two.
• Stuff the dough into a piping bag, fitted with a large nozzle and pipe equal amounts of it into the prepared moulds.
• Set them aside for another 30 minutes to allow the dough to rise again.
• Meanwhile, warm up your oven to 350 degrees F.
• Bake them in the oven for 25 minutes.
• While the babas bake, prepare the syrup by placing the sugar in a small saucepan and stir in a bout of rum as well as 7 fl oz water until mixed well.
• Bring the mixture to a rigorous boil until the sugar dissolves and the syrup thickens.
• Remove the babas from the oven and set them aside in the pan until they cool slightly.
• Remove them from the moulds and place one on each serving plates.
• Drizzle some of the rum syrup over them and set aside to allow the liquid to seep into the mixture.
• Drizzle rest of the syrup over them and leave them in the fridge until they are chilled.
• Serve chilled.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Last Updated on May 7, 2013 by