While I was living in France, one of my favourite dessert discoveries was Baba au Rhum. In fact, I was already very familiar with the baba part which is like a brioche bun. However, the part that makes it taste really good is the rum syrup! Once at a restaurant in Paris, we were left a bottle of rum on the table in case we wanted to pour some more on. It’s strong stuff. This recipe for Baba au Rhum is a combination of a normal brioche dough recipe and the rum sugar syrup. Instead of baking a loaf of brioche, these are made into a bun shape using muffin tins. There is a special baba-shaped mould, but I don’t have one so the muffin tins work well as a substitute.
Ingredients
Dough for Brioche
12 g dried yeast
20 ml water
250 g plain flour
pinch of salt
15 g caster sugar
4 eggs
75g butter, melted
Rum sugar syrup
1 litre of water
250g granulated sugar
1 lemon
1 orange or mandarin
1 Tbsp vanilla bean paste
120 ml rum + extra rum to add before serving
Topping
Whipped cream (optional)
Instructions
First, in a small bowl, mix water and yeast and set aside. Next, in a large bowl, add the flour, salt and sugar. Add the yeast water mixture and two eggs. Mix well. Add one more egg and mix well. Finally, add the last egg and mix well. Then add the melted butter, and mix the dough well until it forms a ball. Cover the bowl and set aside at room temperature until dough has risen to twice the size, about 1 hour.
In the meantime, put the water and sugar into a pot and heat over medium-high heat. Zest the lemon and orange and add the zest to the sugar water. Then squeeze the juice into the sugar water. Add the vanilla. Bring the water to a boil and let boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.
When the dough is ready, divide it into 8-10 muffin tin spaces (best to use silicone muffin moulds or grease metal tins with butter). Set the moulds aside and wait for dough to rise to double the size, about 45 minutes to an hour.
Heat oven to 170C and bake the dough for 20 minutes or until golden. Remove from the oven.
Add 120ml rum to the sugar water. Soak each brioche in the sugar syrup until it is well-saturated. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Finally, serve as is, or with an extra splash of rum and a topping of whipped cream.
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