Babas au rhum

The story goes that one day the 18th-century Duke Stanislas of Lorraine improved his kugelhopf with a sprinkling of rum - the result was so delicious that he named it after his favourite character in A Thousand and One Nights, Ali Baba. When these stories first appeared in French they had a great influence on the taste of the day. And so was born the best yeast cake of all rum baba. The more probable but less romantic explanation is that Stanislas brought a taste for babas with him f