Polish-Style Easter Cake (Baba)

Ingredients

• 120 g raisins (soaked in rum)
• 0.5 cube fresh yeast (about 21 g)
• 200 ml milk
• 180 g sugar
• 500 g flour
• 80 g melted butter
• 2 Eggs
• 1 orange zest
• 1 vanilla pod (split, use the seed)
• 1 pinch salt
• butter (for the molds)
• 200 g sugar
• 100 ml Orange Juice
• 50 ml rum
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• orange zest
• candied orange cubes

Instructions

1. 1.

   Soak the raisins in rum for several hours or overnight.

2. 2.

   Preheat the oven to 180°C with upper and lower heat.

3. 3.

   Dissolve the yeast in 3 tbsp lukewarm milk and make a pre-ferment from some sugar and a few tablespoons of sifted flour; let it rise covered in a warm place for about 15 minutes. Then combine the remaining flour with melted butter, raisins, eggs, orange zest, vanilla seed, salt, the rest of the milk and the remaining sugar together with the pre-ferment, knead well and shape into a ball, cover with a cloth and let it rise for another 45 minutes until doubled in volume. Knead again. Fill two well-buttered loaf pans and let rise for an additional 30 minutes. Bake in the preheated oven for about 50 minutes; test with a skewer.

4. 4.

   In the meantime, cook sugar, orange juice and 300 ml water into a syrup, reduce to one-third and add rum.

5. 5.

   Remove the hot cakes from the oven and soak them with the syrup. Let the cakes cool and carefully unmold. For serving whisk powdered sugar with orange juice until smooth, sprinkle over the babas and garnish with orange zest and candied orange cubes.