Baba au Rhum Recipe

This Baba au Rhum recipe creates a light, tender French yeast cake soaked in a fragrant dark rum syrup infused with orange peel and cinnamon. Featured on Dinner in Paris with host Romain Avril, this sumptuous French dessert combines soft enriched dough with warm citrus, spice, and rum flavours for a classic pâtisserie-style finish.

The Inspiration

Baba au Rhum is a classic French rum-soaked cake known for its airy yeast dough and generous infusion of syrup. The pastry is baked in individual baba molds, then paired with a warm rum mixture that transforms the simple cake into a moist and aromatic dessert.

On Dinner in Paris, host Romain Avril prepares the baba dough with flour, yeast, lemon zest, sugar, eggs, warm milk, and softened butter. The combination creates an enriched yeast dough that rises twice before baking, helping produce the light structure associated with traditional Baba au Rhum.

The dark rum syrup is what gives Baba au Rhum its unmistakable identity. Sugar provides sweetness, cinnamon adds warmth, orange peel contributes fragrance, and dark rum gives the dessert its deep, aromatic finish.

Ingredients

For Dough

• 250 g / 2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup warm milk
• 3 large eggs, room temp
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1/3 cup of unsalted butter, soft Plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted (for greasing molds)
• 2 tsp yeast
• Zest of 1/2 lemon

For Syrup

• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup dark rum, plus 1 tbsp dark rum, divided
• 2 strips of orange peel
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Pinch of salt

Method

• Make dough. Combine flour, yeast, lemon zest and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Whisk eggs and milk in a separate mixing bowl. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and mix. Incorporate butter. Knead until smooth.
• Rise. Cover and let rise 1 hour. Once the dough has risen, punch it down gently and cut into equal size pieces that will fit in the greased baba molds. Fill the molds with baba batter and let rise another 20-30 minutes.
• Bake. Preheat oven 180°C / 350°F. Bake 20–25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest for 4-5 minutes.
• Make Syrup. Heat water, sugar, 1/4 cup dark rum, orange peel and cinnamon stick in a pot over medium-high heat. Cook until syrupy und warm amber in colour. Once you get to that point, remove from heat and add 1 tbsp dark run and a pinch of salt.
• Serve warm babas with rum caramel.

Serving Suggestions

This Baba au Rhum recipe is best served warm so the light yeast cake can absorb the aromatic rum syrup while remaining soft and tender. Spoon the syrup generously over each baba just before serving, allowing some of the liquid to collect around the base of the cake.

The orange peel and cinnamon give the syrup enough complexity that the dessert does not require an elaborate garnish. The warm citrus, spice, and dark rum flavours complement the buttery yeast dough naturally.

Baba au Rhum works beautifully as the final course of a French-inspired dinner, particularly when you want a dessert that feels elegant but is lighter in texture than a dense cake. Coffee can provide a pleasant bitter contrast to the sweet rum syrup.

Final Thoughts

This Baba au Rhum recipe showcases the distinctive character of a classic French yeast cake. Unlike ordinary sponge or butter cakes, the dough relies on yeast and two rising periods to develop its soft, airy texture.

Whether served after dinner or prepared for a special occasion, this sumptuous Baba au Rhum recipe delivers tender cake, fragrant citrus, cinnamon, and rich dark rum flavour in every syrup-soaked bite.

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