n modern The original form of the baba was similar to the or , a tall, cylindrical Polish
yeast cake. The name means 'old woman' or 'grandmother' in most
Slavic languages; is a
diminutive of . The modern (rum baba), with dried fruit and soaked in rum, was invented in the in
Paris, France, in 1835 or before. Today, the word in France and almost everywhere else outside Central and Eastern Europe usually refers specifically to the rum baba. The original baba was introduced into France in the 18th century via
Lorraine. This is attributed to
Stanislaus I, the exiled
king of Poland. The has reported that Stanislaus had the idea of soaking a dried (a cake roughly similar to the baba and common in Alsace-Lorraine when he arrived there) or a baba with
alcoholic spirit. Another version is that when Stanislaus brought back a baba from one of his voyages it had dried up. Nicolas Stohrer, one of his
pâtissiers (or possibly just apprentice pâtissiers at the time), solved the problem by adding
Malaga wine,
saffron, dried and fresh
raisin and
crème pâtissière. The writer
Courchamps stated in 1839 that the descendants of Stanislaus served the baba with a
saucière containing sweet Malaga wine mixed with one sixth of
Tanaisie liqueur. Stohrer followed Stanislaus's daughter
Marie Leszczyńska to
Versailles as her pâtissier in 1725 when she married King
Louis XV. Stohrer founded his pâtisserie in Paris in 1730. One of his descendants allegedly had the idea of using rum in 1835. While he is believed to have done so on the fresh cakes (right out of the mold), it is a common practice today to let the baba dry a little so that it soaks up the rum better. Later, the recipe was refined by mixing the rum with
aromatized sugar syrup. The baba is also popular in
Naples, and became a popular
Neapolitan specialty under the name or . The pastry has appeared on restaurant menus in the United States at least since 1899. ==
Savarin==