Name: Baba au rhum, crème Chantilly
Yield: Makes 12 babas; the accompaniments serve 4
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 1 tbsp icing (confectioners’) sugar; 200 ml (7 fl oz/1 scant cup) whipping (heavy) cream; drop of vanilla extract; 200 g (7 oz/1 cup) very sweet pineapple (roughly half a pineapple), cut into 1cm (½ in) cubes; 50 g (1¾ oz/4 tbsp) sultanas (golden raisins); pinch of salt; 200 g (7 oz/2 scant cups) T45 flour (use plain (all-purpose) flour if you can’t get hold of it); 4 eggs; 2 tsp clear honey; 1½ tsp fresh yeast; 70 g (2 oz/4 tbsp) soft unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing; pared zest of 1 orange; ½ vanilla pod, seeds scraped; 400 g (14 oz/1¾ cups) caster (superfine) sugar; 500 ml (16 fl oz/1 pint) water; 100 g (3½ oz/⅓ cup) caster (superfine) sugar; 100 ml (3½ fl oz/⅓ cup) water; 50 ml (3 tbsp) dark rum; pared zest of 1 lemon

Preparation info

Makes 12 babas; the accompaniments serve
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Classic Koffmann

By Pierre Koffmann

Published 2016

About

It’s quite funny how food has fashions – why should tastes and flavours follow any kind of trend? – but alongside the likes of devil’s food cake and prawn cocktail, this French brasserie classic has now been assigned ‘retro’ status in the UK, in other words, it’s slightly unfashionable. That’s a shame as I think these individual little boozy cakes make a fine and elegant finale to a meal and I still often put them on the menu at Koffmann’s.

Babas need to be very moist – they should