Easy French Baba au Rhum cake recipe
Ingredients
 | 2 cups of all purpose flour |
 | 3 eggs |
 | 2.5 ounces of melted butter (70 g) |
 | Baking powder |
 | 1/2 cup of regular or brown sugar |
 | Pinch of salt |
 | 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract |
For the rhum syrup:
| 1 cup of regular or brown sugar |
| 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract |
 | 1/2 cup of chantilly cream |
 | 50 ml of rhum (alternative: fruit syrup like apple cinnamon or lemon) |
 | 300 ml of water |
 | (Optional) Mixed berries |
How to make Baba au Rhum cake
Baking the cake
- Beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl until smooth and slightly frothy.
- Add the flour, sugar, melted butter, vanilla extract, and salt. Blend thoroughly with a hand mixer until the batter is smooth and lump-free.
- Pour the mixture into a greased cake pan or individual muffin molds, filling them evenly.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for about 35 minutes, until golden and set. A knife inserted in the center should come out clean.
Making the Syrup
- Heat the water in a saucepan over high heat until boiling.
- Add the sugar and cook until it dissolves and begins turning into a light golden syrup.
- Lower the heat once it reaches a golden color — you want caramelized, not burnt.
- Stir in the rum and vanilla extract gently, allowing the flavors to combine.
Assembling
- Cool slightly once the cakes come out of the oven.
- Unmold while still slightly warm and place each cake on a dessert plate.
- Slice the cakes in half and spoon syrup generously over each piece so it soaks in.
- Top with a dollop of Chantilly cream and a sprinkle of fresh berries.
- Serve warm.
A Baba au rhum is a traditional French cake soaked in a rum-based syrup and topped with chantilly cream. If you are looking for an easy French dessert with a touch of liquor that is going to impress, what could be better?
Sometimes called a rum baba, it was actually believed to have been created by a King. Or rather a former one. Ex-Polish King Stanislas (whose daughter Marie happened to be married to French King Louis XV) was in exile in the Alsace-Lorraine region, when he decided to take their traditional gugelhupf cake was rather dry.
So he decided to douse it in wine. (Stanislas is also believed to have created that other French classic, the onion soup.)
A few years after Stanislas, in 1735, Parisian pastry chef Nicolas Stohrer, who was a relative of the pastry chef of King Stanislaus, decided that rum from the Americas (where France had colonies) would be better suited. And with that, a classic was born.
It is not clear where the word “baba” (pronounced “bah-bah”) comes from, but it may refer to the Polish dessert “babka“. The word baba in Polish means “grandmother”, so in essence it is “grandmother’s cake”.
The cake itself is a rather basic cake, usually baked in individual portions like a cup cake. Chantilly cream comes from the nearby town of Chantilly, which is about 30 minutes north of Paris.
Cooking without alcohol
Now, obviously a baba au rhum gets its name from the rum liquor that the cake is soaked in. But if you don’t drink alcohol or have small children, you may want to serve a baba au rhum without alcohol.
In this case, you can follow the recipe and just leave the rum out completely, or you can substitute it for a fruit syrup like apple cinnamon or lemon. It will still taste just as great!
Baba au Rhum
Equipment
Ingredients
For the cake
- 2 cups of all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 sachet of baking powder (1/2 tablespoon)
- 1 pinch of fine salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2.5 ounces of melted butter (70 g)
For the Rum syrup
- 300 ml of water
- 50 ml dark rum
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup of chantilly cream
- handful of mixed berries (optional)
Instructions
Baking the cake
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs.
- Add the flour, sugar, melted butter, vanilla extract, and salt, and blend throughly with a hand blender or mixer.
- Pour the mixture into a cake or muffin mold.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 35 minutes at 350°F (180°C).
Making the syrup
- About 10 minutes before the cake finishes cooking, place a sauce pan on the stove and boil the water on high heat.
- Add the sugar into the boiling water and cook until it turns into a syrup.
- When it turns a golden color, lower the heat.
- Add the rum and vanilla extract into the mixture and mix gently.
Adding the syrup to the cake
- Once the cake is out of the oven, let it cool slightly.
- Remove the individual cakes from the mold once it is mildly warm and place each in dessert saucer plates.
- Cut the individual cup cakes in half and add some of the syrup to each one.
- Add a dollop of chantilly cream and sprinkle some french berries on top.
- Serve while warm.
Notes
Nutrition
Please note: We are not certified nutritionists and these estimates written and produced for entertainment purposes only.
How do you serve it?
Baba au rhum is usually served at room temperature or lightly tepid. I suggest leaving the cake at room temperature and slightly warming up the rum syrup before serving.
What drinks to serve with it?
Baba au rhum can be served with a light white wine like a muscat or Alsace pinot gris. You can also serve it with a digestif like pineau de charentes or even just tea or espresso.
How to store it?
You can prepare baba au rhum a few hours in advance and let the cake soak in, but I don’t recommend putting it in the fridge to avoid retaining water.
