Sweet Spot

London's most innovative chefs are reinventing the classic baba au rhum by replacing the titular tipple with unexpected drams.

- Words: Hilary Armstrong

FILL IN THE blank: baba au... ? If the only word that springs to mind is ‘rhum’, then you clearly haven’t dined out in England’s capital lately. At Da Terra in East London, chef Rafael Cagali finishes his signature baba with a tot of aged cachaca from his native Brazil. Further west, Valentin Jollivet—executive pastry chef at Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester—made waves at a special dinner when he broke with house style and spiked his version with the Japanese spirit shochu.

The replacement liquors may sound out of left field but, in fact, have historical precedent. The baba au rhum that we know today started life as just a baba (the Polish word for ‘old woman’ and its diminutive form, babka, became a sobriquet for the cakes in the 1640s) and a dry one at that. Legend has it that the dessert gained its defining moisture in the early 18th century, when Nicolas Stohrer, head pastry chef to the exiled king of Poland, Duke Stanislas of Lorraine, revived a stale yeasted cake with sweet wine. Stohrer was later put in charge of baking at Versailles and went on to open his own patisserie in Paris in 1730—which you can still visit today—but it would be over a century before rum become canon.