The Savarin/Baba Cake Recipe - (2024)

FAQs

What's the difference between a baba and a savarin? ›

What is the difference between a savarin and a baba? Traditionally if the dough is shaped like a donut, the final product is called “savarin”; if the shape resembles a champagne cork, it's called “baba“.

A rum baba or baba au rhum is a small yeast cake saturated in syrup made with hard liquor, usually rum, and sometimes filled with whipped cream or pastry cream.

The origins of Baba au Rhum come from the babka - a yeast cake that can still be found in Poland and Ukraine. In fact, Baba means "grandmother", while babka means something more affectionate roughly translating to "little grandmother."' So how did a Polish cake make it to France?

The History

It was the name of Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French lawyer and food writer working in the early 19th century. This yeast risen “cake” was developed by Parisian pâtissier Auguste Julien in 1845 in his honor. In fact, it was initially called the Brillat-Savarin but later shortened to Savarin.

What makes a savarin different than your typical Bundt cake is that savarin is a yeast dough. The result is a light and spongy cake with a light, bready aroma that is perfect for soaking up a flavorful syrup. You'll need to plan ahead since the dough needs to rise almost two hours total.

The name Savarin is given in honour of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the famous French gourmet, who gave Auguste Julien the recipe for the rum syrup used in the original Savarin Gâteau.

A two-tier Godfather themed cake featuring all hand-modeled and edible elements from the classic movie. The cake is lemon chiffon with a delicious raspberry butter-cream filling, covered in dark chocolate ganache and LMM fondant.

It was created by Jenny Åkerström, who was a teacher for the three Swedish princesses at the time. The original name for the cake was “gröntårta,” or green cake, after the distinctive marzipan topping. It was later renamed Prinsesstårta, or Princess cake, as it became a favorite of the three princesses.

Pão de Ló was one of the conventual sweets produced throughout Portugal by the nuns living in the convents. It is characteristic of many other of the conventual sweets containing a considerable amount of egg yolks and sugar, and very little wheat flour.

One theory says Babka is indigenous to the Ukraine, part of an ancient fertility symbol. The story of chocolate and the Jewish community is a bit different in the Mediterranean. There, Jews and chocolate went together like bagels and cream cheese. Don't miss what matters.

Why is rum cake called Baba? ›

Baba (BAH-bah) Baba is called Babka in Poland and in France. In French, the word baba meaning, “falling over or dizzy.” The dessert became very popular in France, but the people called it Baba Au Rhum and soon dropped the name Savarin. In other parts of the world, the cake is known as simply Savarin.

borrowed from Yiddish & Polish; Yiddish babke (in sense a), borrowed from Polish babka (in sense b), literally, "old woman, grandmother," diminutive of baba "grandmother, midwife, old woman"

sav·​a·​rin ˈsa-və-rən. : a rich yeast cake baked in a ring mold and soaked in a rum or kirsch syrup.

The Egyptians gave us the world's oldest known cake–and also the world's oldest Tupperware as it happens. During the reign of Pepi II from BCE 2251 to 2157, bakers mixed up a wheat dough for flatbread and filled it with honey and milk. The dough was poured into two pre-heated copper molds that fit tightly together.

(a) (also cakehead, cakey) a fool; a stupid police officer. 1770.

/ˈsæv.ə.rɪn/ a kind of cake made with yeast in a ring-shaped mould (= container) and soaked with syrup (= sweet, thick liquid): Dessert was chocolate savarin flavoured with port.

What's a savarin dough like? It's similar to a brioche dough but wetter and stickier. You pipe the dough into the smaller moulds so the dough should be pipeable and not as thick or elastic as a typical bread dough. It seems to have a consistency between that of choux pastry batter and a brioche dough.