French Food Friday...Alain Ducasse’s Signature Dish - Baba au Rhum

photo and recipe from here

Bonjour,

It started like this......I said to French Boyfriend that I needed a recipe for French Food Friday and that it should be something romantic......he said how about boeuf bourguignon? I replied that I did not find that romantic! His reply was that he did and preferred it to anything else.

 

Last night I, the kiwi girl living with a French man that used to own a restaurant, used an Australian recipe to cook Boeuf Bourguignon. Hence stress levels were at an all time high but I should tell you that it was not the first time that I have made it as I used to serve it to guests staying at Maison de Poitiers and it always went down a treat.

 

End result a happy and surprised boyfriend who now wants my "secret" recipe and is also planning on eating it again for dinner ce soir.

 

Back to todays recipe story, I said that for St Valentine I was thinking of making something sweet.....hence when I suggest Baba au rhum, he looked a bit worried........pourquoi you may ask? Let"s just say that FB likes rum and often takes a secret tipple from the bottle that I buy for making my apple tart, when he thinks I am not looking.   

End result, I am sharing the recipe for his favourite dessert with you and he has rushed off to buy another bottle of rum.

Hope that you enjoy this recipe, it comes from one of France's best chefs  and I am sure it would be perfect for a romantic dinner for 2.....

 Alain Ducasse’s Signature Dish - Baba au Rhum

 

Ingredients

1 sachet dried yeast

1/3 cup milk

1/4 cup flour

7 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons flour

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

zest of 1 orange

1/2 cup rum

apricot jam

whipped cream

 

Method

1. In a large stainless steel bowl, dissolve 1 sachet of dried yeast in 1/3 cup of milk. Stir over a medium heat until warm.
2. Remove from the heat and stir in 1/4 cup of sifted flour, cover and set in a warm place for 20 minutes.
3. Beat 7 tablespoons of softened unsalted butter with 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of flour. Add four eggs, one at a time, and beat well. When the yeast dough has risen and become spongy, whisk in this mixture, plus a further 1 1/4 cups of flour, to make a thick, doughlike batter.
4. Spoon the batter into eight greased dariole moulds. Bake in a 350 F (raewyn to change to C!) oven for 20 minutes.
5. Stir 1 cup of sugar into 2 cups of water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the zest of 1 orange, in strips. When cool, add 1/2 a cup of rum.
6. When the babas are risen and golden, remove from the oven and unmold. Dip them into the syrup to saturate and then leave on a wire rack to cool. When cool, brush with warmed, strained apricot jam.
7. To serve, split the babas lengthwise and spoon over more rum, then top with vanilla whipped cream.

......bon appetit à tous, Leeann x