Vegan Rum Babas
These Vegan Rum Babas (or Baba au Rhum) are sweet and sticky, topped with a vanilla "cream", mango, raspberry and desiccated coconut.
Servings: 8 people
Equipment
- Either doughnut tins, savarin moulds or dariole moulds.
Ingredients
For the cakes
- 225 grams strong white bread flour
- 7 grams fast action yeast
- 50 grams caster sugar plus extra for lining the tins/moulds
- 150 millilitres coconut milk
- 100 grams non-dairy butter plus extra for lining the tins/moulds
For the syrup
- 150 millilitres water
- 100 millilitres dark rum
- 250 grams caster sugar
For the cream
- 150 millilitres non-dairy cream (e.g. Elmlea Plant)
- 4 tablespoon icing sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
For the decoration
- mango
- raspberries
- desiccated coconut
Instructions
To make the syrup soaked cakes
- Add the flour, yeast and sugar to a large mixing bowl and whisk so that the sugar and yeast is evenly distributed.
- Pour the milk into the bowl and mix until it is coming together into a ball of dough. Next, either knead by hand for 10 minutes or using a mixer for 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and shiny.
- Add the butter to the bowl and work into the dough (again either by hand using a kneading action or by using the mixer). It will be very tricky to work with so a dough scraper will come in useful if you are doing it by hand. It will take a little while for the butter to incorporate so keep persevering! Once it's fully combined the dough will be loose and silky smooth but stretchy.
- Cover the bowl with clingfilm or a damp cloth and place somewhere warm to rise for at least an hour or until doubled in size.
- While the dough is proving, line your tins/moulds by rubbing them with a little butter and then dusting them with caster sugar,
- Once the dough has risen, spoon it into a large piping bag. Cut the end off of the piping bag and then pipe the dough into your tins/moulds. Be cautious not to fill more than ¾ full giving them enough room to continue to rise.
- Leave the dough to rise for a further 30 minutes. During this time preheat your oven to 180C / 350F / gas mark 4.
- Bake in the centre of the oven for 20-25 minutes or until they are lightly golden brown.
- When the cakes have cooked, let them cool slightly before attempting to remove from their tins / moulds.
- While the cakes cool, add the water, sugar and rum to a saucepan to make the syrup. Heat on a low-medium heat until the sugar has dissolved completely.
- Pour the syrup into a large dish. Remove the cakes from their tins and then sit them in the syrup.
- Once the cakes have soaked up the syrup on one side, flip them over and let them sit again until they are saturated with syrup.
- The cakes should be left to cool completely before serving with the cream and fruit.
To make the vanilla cream
- Immediately before serving, add the non-dairy cream, icing sugar and vanilla paste to a mixing bowl. Whisk on high until the cream is thick and pipeable.
- Add a star shaped nozzle to a piping bag and fill with the whipped cream.
To decorate
- Place 1 or 2 cakes on to a plate with a little extra syrup and fill / top with the cream.
- Add a raspberry or two, diced mango cubes and desiccated coconut to serve.