Turmeric Ginger Orange Rum Babas Recipe

The recipe

Exact quantities, then the method.

These are proper rum babas, the little yeasted sponges, soaked in a turmeric-ginger-orange syrup laced with dark rum in place of the usual plain sugar syrup. The soak is everything in a baba, and this one turns them a deep gold with a gentle ginger heat ordinary rum baba never has. The tea flavours the sponge right through as it drinks up the syrup and doubles in weight.

Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for the Turmeric Ginger Orange Rum Babas recipe. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/recipes/cocktails/turmeric-ginger-orange-rum-babas/

It uses Pukka Organic Turmeric, Ginger and Orange. Dark rum is the classic pairing, with an alcohol-free swap at the end.

⏱ 45 min syrup + 2 hr baba prove + 25 min bake 🍽 Serves 6 to 8 small babas 📊 Medium 📚 Tea Cocktails (Adults Only)

You'll need

For the turmeric-ginger-orange rum syrup:
3 Pukka Organic Turmeric, Ginger and Orange tea bags
350ml filtered water at 95°C
150g caster sugar
60ml aged dark rum (Goslings Black Seal or Diplomatico Reserva; avoid white rum)
1 strip of pared unwaxed orange peel
For the small baba sponges (makes 6 to 8):
250g strong white bread flour
7g fast-action dried yeast (one sachet)
40g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 large eggs, beaten
120g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
50ml warm whole milk
6 to 8 small individual baba moulds or a standard 12-hole muffin tray, well-greased
For serving:
200ml chilled whipping cream, lightly whipped to soft peaks
1 strip of pared unwaxed orange peel per baba, curled

Method

Make the babas first. Combine the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Beat the eggs and warm milk together, pour into the dry mix and beat with a wooden spoon for five minutes until the dough is smooth and stretchy. Beat in the melted butter in three additions, mixing well after each. The dough should be glossy and slightly slack.
Cover the bowl with cling film and leave to prove at warm room temperature for one to one-and-a-half hours, until the dough has doubled in size and looks light.
Grease the baba moulds (or 6 to 8 holes of a muffin tray) generously with butter. Knock back the proven dough by stirring it down with a wooden spoon, then spoon equal portions into the moulds, filling each one third full. Cover loosely with cling film and prove again for 30 to 40 minutes until the dough fills the moulds.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees fan (220 conventional). Bake the babas for 18 to 22 minutes, until deep golden and a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven, leave to cool in the moulds for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and let them rest another ten minutes before soaking.
Make the syrup while the babas bake. Bring 350ml of water to 95 degrees. Drop all three Pukka Turmeric Ginger Orange bags into a small saucepan with the strip of pared orange peel and pour the water over. Cover, off the heat, steep for eight minutes.
Lift the bags out and the orange peel. Stir the 150g of caster sugar into the hot concentrate until completely dissolved.
Let the syrup cool to roughly 50 to 55 degrees (about 12 minutes, warm to a quick touch). Stir in the 60ml of aged dark rum at this temperature; rum added at full boil flashes off.
Place the cooled baba sponges in a deep dish or shallow tray. Spoon the warm rum syrup over them slowly, a few tablespoons at a time, letting each addition soak in before the next. Each baba should absorb roughly 50ml of syrup and double in weight; this is the difference between a proper baba and a dry cake.
Plate one baba per serving, with a generous spoon of softly whipped cream beside it and a curl of pared orange peel laid across the top. Drizzle any remaining syrup from the dish around the cream. Serve at room temperature.
Alcohol-free swap for the syrup: omit the dark rum. Replace with 60ml of strong cold-brewed Earl Grey (2 bags in 60ml of cold water for 4 hours) plus 1 tablespoon of black treacle for the molasses depth.

What you'll end up with: A glistening deep-gold baba in a pool of rum syrup with a heap of whipped cream: rum and orange on the nose, turmeric and ginger through the soaked sponge, a long buttery yeasted finish.

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