So today sees the return of the rum baba, sometimes also called a baba savarin, although technically they aren’t quite the same thing. According to Barron’s The New Food Lover’s Companion, the rum baba was created sometime in the 1600s by the Polish king, Lesczyinki, who soaked a stale kugelhopf in rum and named the resulting dessert after the legendary thief, Ali Baba. Why? That, apparently, history doesn’t say, but perhaps it’s an allusion to what eating a lot of bread soaked in rum can do for your self-confidence? Unlike the good king, we use a simple syrup flavored with rum instead of the straight liquor (now, if we had a license…).
The dough itself is similar to an enriched brioche, or kugelhopf. Some classic versions may include raisins or other dried fruit (going back to the baba’s kugelhopf roots). Ours are split, dunked, filled with pastry cream and then topped with caramel whipped cream. There’s a little extra shot of syrup to go with it.
Rum baba are definitely a bit on the sweeter side, so I’d pair it with some coffee or strong tea.
For the more savory inclined, there are new pastrami sandwiches out. Stacked, thin-sliced pastrami on our house pretzel roll with tangy mustard, sauerkraut and comte cheese. These are served hot, and popped in the oven when you order.
Be on the lookout for more new desserts and new savories- we have a lot of work and development going on over the next couple of weeks!
