No. 3117

Savarin with Apricots

Savarin aux Abricots

Sift one pound of flour into a warm vessel, make a leaven with a quarter of the flour and half an ounce of yeast dissolved in tepid water; cover it over with a part of the flour and let rise in a mild heat. When it has risen to double its primitive volume remove from the warm place and break it up with the hand to make the sponge, giving the paste plenty of body. Mix into it gradually eight whole eggs and six separate yolks, and working in the flour knead it vigorously for ten minutes, then add slowly half a pound of melted butter, six ounces of sugar, a grain of salt, lemon peel and lastly four spoonfuls of raw cream. Take up the paste in small parts with the hands and fill one or several buttered Savarin molds three-quarters full; let rise as high as the edges in a mild temperature, then bake the cakes in a moderate oven. As soon as they are removed moisten them with syrup infused with lemon or orange peel and any desired liqueur, then drain on a dish, cover with Madeira apricot sauce, filling the hollows with hot stewed apricots. Serve an apricot sauce with Madeira apart, the same as for Humboldt pudding (No. 3100).

← No. 3116 Rissoles with Preserves and with Almond Crea Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3118 Souffle of Chestnuts with Vanilla →

For the Modern Kitchen

A yeast-raised savarin in the French style, enriched to the point of being nearly a batter, then soaked while hot. Ranhofer assumes you know the sponge method and gives no times or temperatures, so the numbers below are the ones that matter.

The hinge: soak the cake hot"As soon as they are removed moisten them with syrup" is the whole technique. A hot savarin drinks syrup; a cooled one seals and the syrup runs off. Have the syrup made and warm before the cake goes into the oven.
Oven temperatureA moderate oven is somewhere around 350-375F. A savarin baked from a pound of flour in a large ring mold will take roughly 30 to 40 minutes; bake it well coloured, as a pale, underbaked one is more likely to collapse when soaked.
The yeastHalf an ounce means compressed fresh yeast, about 14 g. Substitute roughly 1 1/2 teaspoons instant dry yeast, and give the leaven and the final rise the time they need rather than the time you expect — this dough is heavy with egg and butter and rises slowly.
Weights, not cupsA pound of flour is about 450 g; half a pound of butter 225 g; six ounces of sugar 170 g. With eight whole eggs and six extra yolks in play, weighing is the only way to keep the ratio Ranhofer intended.
"A grain of salt" and "four spoonfuls"A grain here is simply a pinch; if you want the salt to register in a pound of flour you will need more, perhaps a teaspoon. "Four spoonfuls" of cream is most likely tablespoons, which would be roughly 60 ml.
Raw creamCream in this period was commonly unpasteurized; ordinary heavy cream does the same job here, and the dough is baked through in any case.
The moldA savarin mold is a plain ring mold with a rounded trough, which is what creates "the hollows" the apricots are spooned into. A tube pan or a shallow ring pan works; butter it heavily and fill no more than three-quarters, as Ranhofer says, because the second rise takes it to the rim.
Kneading a batter-like doughTen minutes of vigorous work by hand develops the gluten that lets the crumb hold syrup without dissolving. A stand mixer with the paddle, then the dough hook, will do the same work; add the melted butter slowly at the end or the dough will break.
Yield and serviceA pound of flour makes enough for one large ring or several smaller molds, as Ranhofer notes; a single large ring would serve something like ten to twelve. Serve it warm, the apricot and Madeira sauce over it and more sauce passed separately.

A Little History

The savarin is generally traced to the Paris pâtissiers Julien in the 1840s, who are said to have taken the older baba — a yeast cake associated with Polish and Alsatian baking and popularized in France in the eighteenth century — baked it in a ring mold, dropped the raisins, and named it for Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, author of Physiologie du goût. By the time Charles Ranhofer compiled The Epicurean in 1894 from decades at Delmonico's in New York, the savarin was standard high-restaurant repertoire, and he lists it with a rotating cast of soakings and garnishes: liqueur, kirsch, fruit. The apricot-and-Madeira version belongs to a moment when a hot sweet entremets was expected near the end of a long service and when a kitchen brigade could be trusted to time a yeast dough around the rest of the meal — which is why the recipe gives quantities in detail and clock times not at all.