Easy Savarin

Savarin is not a dessert you see much anymore. It is a yeast cake soaked with rum (yum!)--sort of like a big Ba-ba Rum. It is usually a pain to make, but I've developed an almost fool-proof way to do it in the food processor. It's a great dessert to bring to someone's home.

1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 cups flour (you made need a little more)
1/2 cup eggs
6 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoons salt
heavy cream for serving

Egg glaze: 1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tablespoon milk

Syrup: 1 1/3 cups water, combined with 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup good-quality dark rum

Glaze: 1/2 cup apricot jam, 2 tablespoon sugar, and green and red candied fruit

Make a sponge, by adding the yeast to 1/4 warm water and stirring in 2 tablespoons of flour (measured from the 1 1/2 cups)--blend the flour into the liquid until no lumps remain. Cover the sponge and let it stand for 20 minutes in a mildly warm place.

Place flour, yeast-sponge mixture, sugar, salt, eggs, and butter, cut-up into small pieces in your food-processor, and process for about 30 seconds or until the dough is well blended. Dough should be extremely loose.

Remove (or more like pour out--you may have to add a tiny bit of flour but add as little as possible; although the dough is very loose at this point, take care beacuse it will firm up as it rises; in other words, the flour will continue to absorp water throughout the rising process) dough from processor bowl, place in a bowl, and let rise until double to triple in size. A turned-off gas oven is a good place for proofing dough. I always covered my bowl with plastic wrap. If you don't have a gas oven, place a bowl of steaming water in your electric oven to warm it up.

Pour the dough into a greased savarin mold (a savarin mold is a mold with a whole in its center--kind of like a Jello mold) and let it rise until double to triple.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush top of cake with egg glaze, and bake on the middle shelf for 25 to 30 minutes. Just before cake comes out, make the rum syrup by boiling water and sugar for 5 minutes, then adding rum after it has cooled for 5 minutes.

Unmold the cake, and then put it back in the mold and prick it all over with a toothpick. Pour 3 to 4 tablespoons of the rum syrup over the cake. Let it soak in for a few minutes, and then unmold it again and place it on a rack. Prick it again and soak it with half the remaining syrup.

Boil the jam with the sugar and strain. Brush over the cake and decorate it with candied fruit. Gently whip heavy cream and sweeten with a little sugar. Serve each slice with a dallop of cream.

Serves 10