If you love Manhattan cocktails, Baba au Manhattan, is your new favourite dessert! Soft, sweet, rich, yet light and fluffy little cakes are made using a butter laden, yeast risen dough, enhanced with eggs, a little sugar and a touch of lemon. Once cooked, they are soaked in a Manhattan cocktail syrup and served with Chantilly cream. The syrup is a sweet, fresh, citrusy version of the classic cocktail.

Take it to the next level and serve a Manhattan Cocktail alongside, which you can either drink, or pour over your baba to add more punch! We were all addicted!

Hotel Starlino Cherries

I was recently gifted a jar of Hotel Starlino Maraschino cherries and I wanted to make something really special using these exquisite, all-natural dark red flavour bombs. They are matured for 2 weeks in their natural Marasca juice and then rested for another week so the flavours can develop and infuse. The result is an incredible, luxurious cherry which works equally well with sweet and savoury flavours.

Although there are many ways you can use Maraschino cherries, I typically associate them with cocktails, most specifically a Manhattan, which is a delectable drink made from rye whiskey (or bourbon), sweet vermouth and bitters.

However, I wanted to make something sweet to eat rather than just drink, so decided to make a dessert using this cocktail as a base. My husband is a HUGE fan of the French classic, Baba au Rhum, which is a brioche style cake, soaked in a sweet rum syrup and served with Chantilly cream. The plan was simple: use my recipe for the baba and Chantilly cream but adapt the rum syrup into a Manhattan syrup with Maraschino cherry juice and finish the babas with Maraschino cherries. And what a wonderful plan and incredible dessert this turned out to be! Andrew was quite delighted to be enjoying such a decadent dessert, with a Manhattan chaser, midweek!

How to make Baba au Manhattan

Collect all your ingredients together:

For babas: (makes 5 large or 16 mini babas)

strong plain flour
fast action dry yeast
fine salt
caster sugar
large eggs
unsalted butter
lemon zest
vanilla extract

For the Manhattan syrup:

caster sugar
water
rye whiskey or bourbon
sweet vermouth
maraschino syrup
Angostura bitters
orange bitters (or extra Angostura bitters)
orange juice and zest
lemon juice and zest

Chantilly Cream

double/heavy cream
icing sugar
vanilla paste

Start off my making the babas:

Weigh the flour, sugar, yeast and salt into the bowl of a freestanding mixture and stir to mix.
Beat the eggs with the vanilla extract and pour onto the flour mix. Stir with a spoon or spatula.
Using the dough hook, beat on speed 2 for around 5 minutes. Keep your eye on it and, if necessary, scrape the dough from the dough hook and continue beating.
As the motor slowly runs, add the soft butter and lemon zest, one small piece of butter at a time. Only add the next piece when the last piece has been fully incorporated. This will take around 5 minutes in total. Beat for a further 2 – 3 minutes, once all the butter has been incorporated.
Transfer to an oiled mixing bowl. Cover and leave to rise until doubled in size. This normally takes between 1- 2 hours depending on how warm it is. If the room temperature is cold, I put mine in the oven, on dough setting at 42°C, and it takes around 1 hour.
Generously grease the baba tins with butter and sprinkle over a layer of caster sugar. (The tins I use measure 11cm wide x 3cm deep with a 4cm hole in the centre.)
When the dough is ready, lightly flour the top of the dough, knock the dough back with your hand and then knead a few times. I find it easier to do this in the bowl using a spatula but you can also tip it out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead with your hands. It is a very soft dough and it is important it doesn’t get too warm as you do not want the butter in the dough to melt. I find a spatula is easier with the soft dough and helps regulate the temperature of the dough better.
Transfer to a piping bag.
Pipe into the prepared rum baba tins and place on a baking tray. NB When you have piped some dough into a baba tin, I find it is easier to cut the dough with scissors before piping the next one.
Place some taller tins around the babas and then cover the whole tray with cling film. Leave to rise for a second time until the dough comes to the top of the tins. This takes around 45 minutes, but as before, will depend on the heat of your room.
Remove the cling film and tins and bake the babas in the centre of the oven for 15 – 25 minutes (depending on size) until golden in colour and the baba springs back when lightly touched. The larger tins measure 11cm wide x 3cm deep with a 4cm hole in the centre. They take 20 – 25 minutes to bake. The smaller size measures 6cm wide x 2cm deep with a 2cm hole in the centre. These take 10 – 15 minutes to bake.
Take out of the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes. Carefully remove from the tins.

I like making smaller ones as well using a small silicone doughnut tray –

Each of these measures cm x cm and take 10 – 15 minutes to bake. This quantity is sufficient for 16 small babas – photographs show just half of these.

Secondly, make the syrup and soak the babas:

Make the syrup: whilst the babas are rising make the syrup. Heat the water and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved.
Turn off the heat and add all the remaining ingredients. Leave to infuse.
Soak the babas: I allow 2 hours minimum for soaking and have even done this a good 24 hours before I serve the babas. Strain half of the syrup into a dish.
Take the babas out of the tins and place top side down in the dish. Cover and leave to soak for a minimum of 1 hour.
Turn the babas over and strain over the remaining syrup – cover and set aside again to soak up the syrup. Store in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

Make the Chantilly Cream and Serve:

Chantilly cream: put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix with a spoon or spatula. This is to help you avoid an icing sugar cloud in the kitchen!
Beat with an electric whisk until they reach the soft peaks stage.
Transfer to a piping bag and pipe the cream into the centre of each baba.
To serve: spoon over any residual syrup and serve any extra cream on the side. Decorate with a maraschino cherry in the centre of each baba and serve a Manhattan cocktail on the side!

Made this recipe?

If you make this recipe, do please tag me on instagram @daffodil_kitchen. You could also leave a comment in the box directly below the recipe.