Getting the monk drunk …
Back home in Austria, especially in Vienna, we like to blame, or credit, the Kapuziner Monks for a range of alcoholic delights. Not least the Kapuziner Kaffee, which ultimately became the Cappuccino, and there is the Besoffener Kapuziner. This little cake is a hazelnut sponge or soufflé soaked in spiced wine.
My version of Besoffener Kapuziner …
Walnut-Apple pudding, soaked in lightly spiced and sweetened Muskadet Wine, served with vanilla ice cream and a brandy sauce
I didn’t sit down to write about the old friar, … naturally … but of course … cake. The French version, or version of it, is the Baba Au Rhum. While the (original) ‘Kapuziner’ is a hazelnut sponge or soufflé soaked in spiced wine, the baba is a yeast cake soaked in, as the name suggests, in rum.
Baba au Rhum – October 29, 2012, Le Bar à Huitres, 33 Rue Saint-Jacques, Paris, France
Not one visit to the capital of love and romance goes by without at least a few babas ‘sampled’. It is the sheer simplicity where its complexity lies. It is the brioche like cake, almost like bread that couldn’t decide … to be or not to be …
The other week I had a group of young Pastry Chefs from around Saigon (that’s Ho Chi Minh City in case you can’t find it on the map) attending my monthly training session, and one of the recipes featured was Baba au Rhum with a ‘tropical twist’.
Baba au Rhum ‘Tropicale’
Ingredients:
Baba Dough:
300 g Flour
7 g Salt
22 g Sugar
17 g yeast
140 ml Whole Milk
225 g Whole Eggs
70 g Unsalted Butter
Baba Syrup:
1 liter Water
300 g Granulated Sugar
1 Vanilla Pod
75 g Passion Fruit Puree
15 g Fresh Ginger
1 Stem Lemongrass
Mango Jelly:
300 g Mango Puree
30 g Sugar
7 g Gelatin Powder
1 large ripe Mango
Instructions:
Baba Dough
Knead the flour, salt sugar and yeast with eggs.
Add slowly the warm milk and knead until well incorporated, approx. 10 min.
When the dough becomes elastic, add the melted butter
mix well …
And pipe into dariole moles
Prove 45 min or until doubled in size
bake 45 min at 170°.
Cool down and soak in baba syrup.
Baba Syrup
Bring to a boil all the ingredients,
And soak the dry baba.
Mango Jelly
Warm up the mango puree and the sugar, stir until melds
Add in the melted gelatine and let cool
Cube the mango and add to the jelly
Now, there you have it. Baba Tropicale. It doesn’t have to be with alcohol all the time. A well balanced and spiced syrup is just as yummy and maybe even a bit more refreshing.