Stohrer, since 1730 · Since 1730
The baba au rhum
Nicolas Stohrer, pastry chef to the Polish king’s daughter at Versailles, opened his shop on the rue Montorgueil in 1730 and soaked a dry brioche in wine; the baba au rhum that followed is still sold there, and the Riviera palaces serve it from a trolley with a bottle.
Taste profile
Pair it with
The rum itself, dark and aged, poured at the table.
Legend has King Stanislas of Poland dunking a dry kugelhopf in wine; his pastry chef Stohrer refined it, and when he followed the king’s daughter Marie to Versailles as queen of France, he opened the shop that still stands. The baba is a yeasted, buttery dough baked in a mould, soaked in a rum syrup and finished with cream. At Stohrer it comes plain or with cream; on the Riviera, at the Louis XV, it arrives on a trolley and the waiter pours the rum of your choice at the table.
The baba is the ancestor of the savarin and of every soaked cake since; it is the guide’s oldest pastry and one of the best.
The home version · serves 6
Ingredients
- 250 g flour
- 10 g fresh yeast
- 3 eggs
- 80 g butter
- 20 g sugar, 5 g salt
- For the syrup: 500 ml water, 250 g sugar, zest of an orange, 100 ml dark rum
- 200 ml whipping cream, 20 g icing sugar
Method
- Dissolve the yeast in a spoon of warm milk, mix with flour, eggs, sugar and salt into a soft dough, beat in the soft butter. Rise one hour.
- Fill buttered baba or savarin moulds half full, rise again until doubled, bake at 180 °C for 20 minutes.
- Make the syrup: boil water, sugar and orange zest, cool slightly, add the rum.
- Soak the babas in the warm syrup until they swell, drain on a rack.
- Serve with whipped cream and a small jug of rum to pour at the table.
Where to taste it
