Baba au Rum without Rum

Contrary to its name, this cake is not an Arabic cake invented by Ali Baba. Neither is it a Peranakan cake (early Chinese settlers in the Malay peninsular who intermarried with locals and their male offsprings are known as Babas).

As history goes, the Baba Rum cake is linked to this deposed Polish king in France. In exile in Lorraine, he found the Kugelhopf (a cake roughly similar to the baba and common in Alsace-Lorraine) too dry for his liking and soaked it in rum. Delighted with the resulting taste, he named it after Ali Baba. Or at least, this is one version of the origins of the cake.

Traditionally, the cake is made using yeast as the rising agent, but this recipe that I had from Rémi's mom can be substituted using baking powder, which makes it more manageable. In order for children to enjoy the cake without breaking the alcohol age limit, I simply omitted rum in the sugar syrup, and had in place a sweet plum cum coffee syrup from my coffee encyclopedia cookbook.

Baba au Rum without rum
serves six

125g flour
60g sugar
4 eggs, whites separated, brought to room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 hazelnut size of butter (as translated from the French recipe)

Syrup
4 plums, stoned and thickly sliced
100g sugar
120ml water
120ml coffee

Beat egg yolks and sugar together until the mixture becomes pale yellow in colour. Add milk, flour and baking powder.

Preheat oven at 160 degrees Celsius.

Beat egg whites until firm and stiff. If the eggs come from the fridge, make sure to bring them to room temperature before making the meringue.

Fold the egg white mixture into the sugar and yolk mixture. I found this part tricky and used the electric beater, but instead causing the resulting cake texture to be denser than desired. As the sugar and yolk mixture is very thick, while the egg white mixture is very delicate, a more proper way is to scoop 1 or 2 spoons of meringue and stir strongly into the yolk mixture, so that the texture becomes smoother. After that, fold the rest of the meringue gently into the yolk mixture.

Butter the ring cake mould generously.

Pour cake mixture into the cake mould and bake for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the syrup. Melt 25g sugar in water. Add the plums and cook over low heat until the plums are almost tender. Remove plums and add the remaining sugar and coffee to the pan. Heat until sugar are dissolved but do not boil.

When the baba cake is cooked, leave to cool for 5 minutes. Then dunk the cake in the warm syrup until well soaked. Let it drip dry on a wire rack or whatever.

To serve, fill the middle with fruits, like the plums and topped with cherries. Spoon extra syrup over the cake and serve with Chantilly cream or plain yoghurt.

As seen from the picture on left (cake done by Rémi's mom), after soaking the cake with sweet syrup, you could also pour Chantilly cream over the whole cake and fill the inside with strawberries and raspberries. This is the expert version.

Tips:
It is also possible to use canned peach or apricot for this cake, and use the syrup straight from the can.