Babas au Rhum

I used Julia Child's recipe from The French Chef in my new baba mold and look how cute they are, like little children all dressed up and ready to go...my little bebe baba! I followed Julia's recipe exactly except for the fact that I used my Kitchen Aid instead of mixing and kneading by hand.

Recipe From: The French Chef by Julia Child

Ingredient (dough)
11/2 cups all purpose flour measured by the scoop and scrape method
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
3 tablespoons water lukewarm
2 large eggs
1/4 cup butter (half a stick) melted and cooled to tepid
Directions (dough) 
Mix the yeast, sugar, and water, stir and dissolve.

Place the rest of dry ingredients in the mixer, make a well and add the yeast mixture in the center.
With the dough hook on your mixer set to # 2 start to mix, adding the eggs and butter as you do.
It will be sticky but after 1 minute if it doesn't start to form an at least sloppy ball, add more flour, 1 tablesoon at a time. I needed about 1/2 cup more flour for mine, but it was a rainy day.
After a  ball forms knead for 7 minutes.
Remove the dough and flour lightly kneading a few times by hand then place in a bowl and cover with a moist warm cloth.
 It needs to rise for 2 hours in a warm place.
Butter your 12 baba molds, or 24 cupcake tins.
Plac a ball of dough and press it into the bottom, no need to smooth out it will when rising and baking. The ball needs to fill the cup 1/3 full.
Now rise uncovered near preheating oven until they are 1/4 inch over the tops.
Preheat oven to 375.
These must be bakes as soon as they are risen. Bake for 15 minutes, they are done when you remove one and it is golden all around. These need to be still warm when soaking. Before placing in rum pierce with a large fork all along the base of the baba's.
Rum Syrup Ingredients
2 cups water, 1 set aside to add at end
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup rum
Rum Syrup Directions
Bring the sugar and 1 cup of the water to a boil stirring until it dissolves, cover and keep warm over lowest heat.
Just before dipping your baba you will add the 1 cup of faucet water and the rum, you need a warm but not hot mixture.
Now place the babas in a large bowl with the warm syrup mixture and  using a baster baste the babas until they start to sink, they must be standing up or else they won't all fit. Set aside to continue to soak for 30 minutes exactly.

Remove and place on a rack to drip off excess syrup for 1/2 hour.
Now splash a drop or two of or rum on top of each baba.
Apricot Glaze Ingredients
1/2 cup apricot jam pressed through a sieve to remove skins.
1 tablespoon sugar
 Apricot Glaze Directions
Boil the apricot jam and sugar until done: scoop up a bit of hot glaze with a teaspoon and let it fall back into the pan; when the last drop falls very slowly, and almost form threads, the glaze is done. This also needs to be warm but not hot.What I did was make it ahead and the reheated on the stove before using.

Now brush the glaze on to each baba.

Toppings

Glace' Cherries (or Maraschino) cut in half, slivered almonds, and cupcake papers

Now place 4 almond slivers and 1/2 a cherry on to each one and lie down into a cupcake paper. Voila!

Notes: The only problem I had was that I only ordered the 8 "cups" mold and this recipe makes 12 so I reserved part of the dough wrapped in plastic in the fridge (so the dough would not have an extra rise) while the first batch was rising in the molds and baking.