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Salve amici:

In the 18th century, the chef of Stanislas Leszczynski, the exiled king of Poland, had accidentally made a very dry, tasteless Gugelhupf (Kouglof) for dinner. Being very upset about this, the king not only refused to eat the dessert but also threw it away in anger. So what is particular in the recipe for savarins/babas? The essential ingredients of the recipe are pretty simple: flour, yeast, eggs, and butter. A lot of butter! Depending on the recipe, the proceedings don’t differ much from the brioche, but the result is drier. Why is that?

The story teaches us that the savarin was soaked because it was dry. Now it’s the opposite: the savarin must be dry because it has to be soaked in a sugar syrup, usually at 30 Brix (30% of sugar on the total weight of the syrup) for several minutes. Think of what happens when you dip cookies for more than 10 seconds in your tea, and you’ll understand why you need the savarin to last a lot longer in a liquid. {1}

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