Small Cakes: Babas III

Today wrapped up the last of the baba recipes, though it was no quick session.  The first recipe alone involved seven to nine hours of fermenting.  Truth be told, I'm a little over the baba recipes and ready to start the petit fours (up next!).  This morning I woke up early and started with the Baba With Raisins on page 54.

The first rising is initiated by mixing yeast and water.

Sift in one-quarter cup of flour and mix together; this will be super sticky.

Three to four hours later it will look like this:

Transfer this to a mixing bowl and add in the remaining flour, sugar, eggs, and salt.

Mix together, and then add in the butter and raisins.  It will look like this:

Give the yeast another four to six hours to get gassy; at this point it will be ready.

Fill the baba molds only halfway (see the last post if you need a reason why) and set in your oven for fifteen to twenty minutes.

Tada!

These rose the correct amount and even had the spacing required to drizzle in the rum sauce.

These were the best yet (confirmed by The Bride), and were different in that these were bready, instead of being muffin-like or resembling a biscuit.  Although these took the longest, I think these have strong potential to be repeated.  At one point in time today it dawned on me that I would be curious to see if any of these (the Kirsch-flavored recipe is what I was thinking of in particular) could have chocolate powder added to make a cocoa muffin.  We'll see.

What the heck was that?
Meh.
Interesting, glad I tried it, but won't go back to try this again.
Good, but not repeat-worthy.
Very good, with some modifications this could be seen again.
This is company-worthy. 

As soon as this was done I immediately started in on the last baba recipe, the Economical Baba on page 54.

Frankly, I was concerned about this recipe from the get-go.  This recipe reverted back to using baking powder as a leavening device, and the other recipes that used this didn't score rave reviews.  Either way, there wasn't too much new to this...mix everything together and pour into the molds.  For some reason, the book has you wait twenty minutes before placing these into the oven.  I'd love to know the science/reasoning behind this.

Hmm....

I glazed them with the rum sauce before consumption and then offered first bite to The Bride.  She took her obligatory bite, said, "No," and then handed it back.  I didn't have as quite an adverse reaction but still wasn't thrilled.  Similar to the first two babas, this was too much like a biscuit.  I like the texture that the yeast creates.

What the heck was that?
Meh.
Interesting, glad I tried it, but won't go back to try this again.
Good, but not repeat-worthy.
Very good, with some modifications this could be seen again.
This is company-worthy.

Petit fours are next!