Sorry, the page you are looking at contains no rum! ;)
I have this love and hate relationship with baba. When soaked to perfection, smooth, with a creamy crumb, full of intense flavor with just the right amount of fluffy cream, then I love it. On the other hand, I have issues with baba poorly soaked in over sweet syrup with a sad hint of low quality rum…
I took a good look at the recipe and the process and tried many (many!) times until it worked for me. But strangely the secret wasn’t really the recipe itself, nor the long fermentation process, nor the very long drying process (which is very important by the way as the baba looses 50% of its weight during that drying process) – but it was optimal soaking. I even went into measuring temperature impact over time, which is really interesting. I found out that the initial soaking had to be at a higher temperature and as the porous texture was filling with liquid, the end of the soaking could happen at a lower temperature. The flour used was also a strong factor – I had much better result with T45 – when the flour was too rough, it gave a less smooth result in crumb.
Once the handling of the basic baba was under control, I started playing with it and made a lemon caramel and blueberry version of it…
I soaked the baba in a juice packed with blueberry and infused in thyme – I haven’t done so, but if I would make it as an alcoholic version, I would add a dash of limoncello or grand-marnier, just because citrus fruits are blending naturally well with blueberry. Once the baba was fully soaked, I prepared a lemon meringue, pretty much based on my favorite recipe of fruit meringue using fresh lemon juice and egg white powder. I worked out an Italian meringue and purposely let the sugar go into full caramel mode – so we had a nice caramel tone in the citrus meringue, fitting perfectly with the blueberry and the thyme.
Perhaps trying a baba prepared with love and care makes all the difference!
