Babà Napoletano

Ingredients

• For the dough
• 500 g strong white flour (00 or bread flour)
• 4 eggs, at room temperature
• 80 g unsalted butter, softened, cut into small pieces
• 20 g caster sugar
• 10 g fine salt
• 7 g instant dried yeast, or 15 g fresh yeast
• 60 ml whole milk, warm
• For the rum syrup
• 500 g caster sugar
• 1 litre water
• 200 ml dark rum, genuine; no extract
• To finish (optional)
• 250 ml double cream, whipped to soft peaks
• 250 g fresh strawberries, hulled and halved

Method

1. 1
   Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk with a pinch of the sugar. Allow to stand until the surface becomes foamy and active — the yeast is proven.
2. 2
   Combine the flour, remaining sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Add the eggs one at a time, then the yeast mixture. Beat at medium-high speed for a sustained period — the dough must develop long, elastic gluten strands. Add the softened butter piece by piece without stopping the machine. Continue beating until the dough pulls away from the bowl in cohesive, elastic sheets and slaps audibly against the sides of the bowl; it will remain very soft and sticky throughout. This is the step on which the dish lives or dies: insufficient beating produces a dense crumb that resists syrup.
3. 3
   Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise at room temperature until it has doubled in volume. The surface will be domed and quivering, and a finger pressed in will leave an impression that springs back slowly.
4. 4
   Butter the babà molds generously. Fill each mold no more than one-third full; the dough is soft enough to be spooned or piped in. Allow the dough to prove a second time until it crowns above the rim of each mold — the surface should appear swollen and just trembling.
5. 5
   Bake in an oven preheated to 200 °C (180 °C fan) until each babà is deep golden — not pale gold but amber — and a skewer inserted in the centre withdraws clean. The crust must be set and dry to the touch so the structure can withstand soaking.
6. 6
   Turn the babà out of the molds onto a wire rack. Allow to cool completely. The crumb will firm slightly as it cools, which is necessary before soaking. The babà may be held at this stage overnight.
7. 7
   Bring the water and sugar to the boil, stirring until the sugar is fully dissolved. Remove from the heat and allow to cool until warm but no longer hot — the syrup should be comfortable to the wrist. Stir in the dark rum. The syrup will be fragrant with genuine rum; a sharp chemical note indicates extract and the syrup must be remade.
8. 8
   Submerge each babà in the warm rum syrup. Press gently and hold it beneath the surface, turning once or twice, until the cake has absorbed syrup to roughly twice its original weight. Lift and squeeze the babà gently: syrup should weep freely from the crumb without the structure collapsing. A centre that remains dry or a cake that disintegrates are both failures; moist, yielding, and intact is the mark.
9. 9
   Transfer the soaked babà to a rack or shallow dish and allow any excess syrup to drain. Serve at room temperature, with the pooled syrup spooned over. Finish with whipped cream and fresh strawberries if desired.