Sopa Borracha

Medium·35 min active + 40 min resting

Panama's 'drunken' dessert — squares of sponge cake soaked in a rum-and-spice syrup, studded with prunes and raisins, served cold in their pooling syrup. The celebratory sweet of weddings and parties.

Egg

Sopa borracha ('drunken soup') is a Panamanian celebration dessert of sponge cake soaked in rum-and-prune syrup, served at weddings and quinceañeras.

Spoon up sopa borracha — a square of sponge so soaked it's almost custardy, sitting in a dark rum syrup with soft plumped prunes and raisins. Bite: boozy and sweet, the cinnamon and clove warming, the prunes deep and jammy, the rum unmistakable. Cold, syrupy, and unabashedly festive — the 'drunken' cake of a Panamanian celebration.

A plain dry sponge is the perfect sponge for the syrup, drinking it deeply without dissolving. Plumping the dried fruit in the syrup first infuses both; adding rum off the heat keeps its aroma. Chilling sets the soaked cake — it's defined entirely by the rum-syrup soak.

Variations

With more rum (boozier). With a meringue top. With dried figs. Served in glasses. With a wine-only syrup (no rum). With slivered almonds.

On the Palate

Where Sopa Borracha sits in the Panamanian flavor cloud

Ingredients

Serves 8

How it's made

8 steps · 35 min active + 40 min waiting

1
26 min
Bake a plain sponge: beat 4 eggs with 120 g sugar, fold in 120 g flour, and bake at 180°C for 22 min; cool.
Watch out
Bake the sponge plain and let it dry out — a bone-dry, unfrosted sponge drinks the rum syrup deepest without dissolving into slush.
2
6 min
Simmer 250 g sugar with 300 ml water, a cinnamon stick, and cloves into a syrup.
3
6 min
Add 80 g prunes and 60 g raisins to the syrup; simmer 5 min to plump.
4
2 min
Off the heat, stir in 100 ml rum (and a splash of sweet wine).
Watch out
Stir the rum in off the heat — add it while the syrup is still on the flame and the alcohol steams off, taking the aroma with it.
5
4 min
Cut the sponge into squares and arrange in a deep dish.
6
3 min
Pour the warm rum syrup with the fruit over the sponge.
7
8 min
Let soak and cool, then chill 40 min.
Watch out
Pour the warm syrup over and let it soak in before chilling — you want every square saturated through, not dry in the middle.
8
40 min
Serve cold, spooning syrup and fruit over each portion.