OK, what is up with all these “retro” desserts? Also, what even is a rum baba? All I could figure out is it’s a yeasted cake with rum in it. The taste was strange, the texture was alright, but over all I was not a fan of how these turned out. That also means I have no idea where I would fall in a technical challenge for these. Probably at the very bottom.

First of all, I used Paul’s recipe. I didn’t have a rum baba tin (because why would I? Is this a common dessert somewhere in the world?), so I used a large muffin tin. Which I think worked out fine, but I have absolutely nothing to compare it to.

So I gathered the ingredients:

220g bread flour
7g yeast
1/2 tsp salt
50g sugar
2 large eggs
70ml milk
100g butter

I added everything but the butter together and combined it into a really wet dough. Then using the slap and fold method demonstrated by the lovely James Morton

I’ve linked this in the past, but it really is a lovely how to video.

Then after about 10 minutes, I slowly kneaded in the butter.

This was actually so much fun to do. I adore the kneading process and there’s something about slapping the dough down on the table and essential playing with putty that I greatly enjoy.

After this step though, I stopped caring. The dough rose

The dough went into the tins

The dough rose

The dough baked

The cakes soaked

Blah blah blah boring. Also are these even a little right?

I didn’t make the cream because I didn’t care enough.

What was difficult:

• I have 0 clue how this was supposed to turn out, so possibly everything

What I learned:

• Maybe what a rum baba is???

Would I make this again?

• No way. Unless it was for the kneading part of it. I would knead this all day every day.