THE BEAUTIFUL STORY OF THE RUM BABA…
THE BEAUTIFUL STORY OF THE RUM BABA…
“A king without entertainment is a man full of miseries,” wrote Jean Giono.
Around the middle of the 18th century, the favorite entertainment of the sovereign Stanislas Leczinski was to eat sweets, delicacies. And since he has lost his kingdom of Poland, and lives in exile in Lorraine, it is even his last pleasure. But alas, his teeth make him suffer! Stanislas cannot therefore bite into his beloved sweets, nor his adored biscuits...
Fortunately, her pastry chef, Nicolas Stohrer, comes to her rescue. Since kouglofs, these large Lorraine biscuits, are forbidden to him, because they are too hard, why not soften them?
Nicolas has the idea of soaking the kougloff with Malaga wine.
Magnificent: not only is the cake tender enough for Stanislas' royal quenottes, but the sweet wine gives it a spicy and delicious flavor as a bonus! The descendant of Nicolas Stohrer, cook like his ancestor, would have replaced malaga with rum and the baba would have been born like this...
However, according to another legend, the rum baba would be an old Polish cake (called Babka there), whose recipe Stanislas would have preciously taken to Lorraine, to console himself during his exile. It seems, in any case, that it is indeed the old greedy king who found the baptismal name of the cake. A great fan of the “One Thousand and One Nights”, he would have liked to pay homage to Ali Baba, one of the heroes of the tale, by dedicating this delicacy to him.
