Babas - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 97th installment. The recipe is Babas.

After the Savarin project back in 2013 (wow - so long ago!), I was kind of skeptical that I would like this, but I was pleasantly surprised.  The dough is the same dough from that cake - a yeast dough, but this time I included the currants soaked in rum.  The dough was very easy to make in the Kitchen Aid mixer.  I didn't have the prescribed baba molds, but I have a mini popover pan that seemed similar in shape to the cylindrical baba molds, which allow the top to rise up and form a crown.

Before rising

After rising

 
Once the babas are risen in the molds, you bake and cool them.  In parallel, you make some pastry cream, which should be chilled in preparation for assembly.
Now to finish them:  you make some sugar syrup, dip each baba into the hot syrup and then cool on the rack. You fill each baba with pastry cream - I used a pastry bag with star tip to poke a hole in the bottom of the baba and squeeze cream into the baba, followed by piping a small rosette on the top of the baba. I topped it with a few bits of candied orange peel.  The flavors were a bit subtle, and unusual, with the yeast-based cake, but we really enjoyed them.