Baba al Rum – An Impressive Treat to Elevate your Feast

This tasty baba al rum, also called baba savarin or rum savarin, is a great way to show off your culinary skills. I decorated these rum cakes with fresh raspberries and whipped cream.

What is Baba al rum?

People eat baba al rum throughout Italy, Poland, France, and beyond! These small, tasty yeast cakes are soaked in syrup for a truly decadent dessert. Don’t worry if you don’t like rum. You can use orange peel to flavor your syrup instead for an alcohol-free version.

As I mentioned in my bobka recipe (Polish Easter bread), legend has it that King Stanislaw Leszczynski of Poland named the cake after the character Ali Baba, from his favorite book, One Thousand and One Nights. Upon his exile, he brought this cake to France, where the rum was added to soften the cake. Baba al rum was born!

You can read one version of the story here.

I didn’t want to buy any pans, so I used a muffin tin. I imagine a bundt pan would work well, too. You can make this recipe more traditionally using a ring cake pan, also called a savarin pan, or you can make small, individual cakes like I did. For small cakes, if you happen to have Matfer molds (baba molds), Dariol molds, or ramekins, you could use those.

Baba al rum is rather labor intensive. I baked the cakes the night before and then the next morning I made the syrup and whipped cream to spread out the work. If you want to do it all in one day, start early to give yourself time in case your dough doesn’t cooperate.

Looking for a less time intensive recipe? Check out my German muffin recipe!

You may also enjoy my vegan monkey bread.

Why isn’t my dough rising? (And how to fix it!)

1. Your kitchen may be too cold.
2. You may not have kneaded it enough.
3. Your milk or water was too cold (or hot!) for the yeast.
4. Your yeast may be too old.

You can still save it! If, like me, you make baba al rum in the dead of winter rather than on a balmy summer day, don’t fret. My dough hadn’t remotely changed in size after sitting covered for an hour. I used a wooden spoon to stir it for three minutes, since a dough this sticky would be hard to knead by hand. Then, I put the towel back on and placed it right in front of a space heater for a little over an hour until it looked right. Thankfully, I had a book.

This addresses problems one and two. If your yeast is the issue (as with problems three and four), you can always add a fresh yeast packet to warm water and let it dissolve for five minutes or so. If it’s active, you should see it bubbling. Once dissolved, you can add a little more sugar and blend it in with your dough. Now it should rise. It may take several hours if it’s cold or you have older yeast. This is why I prepared the cakes the day before I planned on eating them. I hate rushing.

Worst case scenario – it’s still tasty

If you truly feel your dough is beyond being salvaged, you could make it into a flatbread in a skillet and add dried fruit, nuts, cinnamon, sugar, etc. If you haven’t yet added the sugar at this point you could make a savory flatbread as well.

Baba al Rum Ingredients

Before you begin, you will need:

• 1 2/3 cups of flour
• 1/2 stick of butter (1/4 cup), at room temperature
• One 7g packet of dry yeast
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp + 1 cup + 1 tbsp of sugar, divided (I used Morena but if you have baker’s sugar that might be better)
• 1/4 cup milk, warmed (but not hot!)
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/4 cup rum
• Fresh raspberries, to garnish (optional but beautiful and delicious!)

How to Make Baba al Rum Cakes

1. First, add the warm milk to the yeast in a large mixing bowl and stir. If it’s too cold it won’t activate the yeast, but if it’s too hot it will kill it. About lukewarm or a little warmer is fine, but it shouldn’t feel hot on your skin.
2. Next add your sugar, flour, and eggs. Stir until fully combined and then for a few minutes, or you could use a mixer for a few minutes. The dough will be sticky, but you don’t need extra flour.
3. Cover the bowl with a towel or plastic wrap and set it somewhere warm for about an hour. You will know it’s ready when it doubles in size.
4. While the dough is rising, you can grease your muffin pan or whatever you are using and sprinkle powdered sugar or flour over it so your cakes don’t stick. Then you can curl up with a book, your favorite show, or if you’re responsible you can wash all the dishes.
5. When the dough has risen, add in the butter, salt, and vanilla extract. Use a wooden spoon to thoroughly combine everything and then stir a few more minutes.
6. When your dough is almost ready, preheat your oven to 375°.
7. Once your dough is combined, fill your muffin tins about half full and bake around 20 minutes or until golden on top.

How to Make Baba al Rum Syrup and Plate your Dessert

1. While the cakes cool (or the next morning), make your syrup. Add one cup of sugar and 1 1/2 cups of water to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for ten minutes until reduced to syrup. Remove from heat and add rum. I used black strap rum, so it already smelled like vanilla, but if you want you could add more vanilla extract here. Stir to combine.
2. While the syrup is boiling, whip your cream with a tablespoon of sugar.
3. Place your cakes in the hot syrup and let them absorb it. Turn them after a minute or so to coat the whole thing. I cut my cakes in half and soaked each side. If you want larger cakes, you can use a wooden skewer or a fork to poke holes through the cake and pour syrup over to saturate your cake.
4. Spoon some whipped cream onto your baba al rum and garnish with fresh raspberries.
5. Serve warm! If you are worried about them getting soggy, only prepare the ones you are eating right away and store the rest of the syrup in the fridge. Just heat it up before using.

If you try this baba al rum recipe, I’d appreciate if you come back and rate it or let me know in the comments how you liked it!

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Variations on Baba al Rum

These cakes are often served with a warm, apricot jam glaze. You could use orange marmalade if you prefer, or honey!

Add raisins, orange peel, lemon zest, shredded coconut, or chopped dried apricots if you would like more fruit in your cake.

Instead of rum, you could use an equal amount of orange juice, or put some orange or lemon zest in the syrup while it’s reducing. You could just use plain syrup, or add vanilla or cinnamon sticks, or even use tea instead of water. Earl grey, anyone?

For the record, I’ve had a similar rum savarin cake from a bakery that was unpleasantly boozy. These baba al rum cakes have a much milder flavor since the rum is essentially poured into boiling syrup and very watered down.

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I hope you love this baba al rum recipe!