A savarin is a ring-shaped yeast cake, baked in a special round mould with a hollow centre and then soaked in warm syrup laced with rum or kirsch until it is heavy and saturated. It is a close sibling of the baba, made from much the same enriched yeast dough but without raisins and given the distinctive crown shape. The soaked ring is usually glazed with apricot and its hollow filled with pastry cream, whipped cream, or fresh fruit, and it is served cold as a dessert.
The savarin was created in Paris in the 1840s by the Julien brothers, Arthur and Auguste, pâtissiers who had opened a shop near the Bourse. They reworked the existing baba: they dropped the raisins, baked the dough in a ring mould, and changed the soaking syrup, and they named the cake in homage to the gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755 to 1826), author of The Physiology of Taste. The exact year is given variously as 1844 or 1845 across sources. The baba itself is older, popularised in early-18th-century France and linked by tradition to the exiled Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński.
A well-made savarin is springy and spongy, soaked through so that the lightest press releases syrup, yet it must still hold its ring shape rather than slump into a wet heap. The flavour is of warm yeast bread carrying the perfume of rum or kirsch and the sweetness of the syrup, balanced by the unsweetened cream piled in the centre. A dry savarin tastes like plain bread; one drowned in syrup turns soggy and falls apart on the fork.
The cake depends on a strong yeast dough: gluten developed by beating, plus the gas from yeast fermentation, builds an open, elastic crumb full of connected air pockets. That porous, sturdy structure is what lets the baked ring drink up a large volume of hot syrup without dissolving, the way a dense sponge would not. The syrup is added warm so it penetrates fully, and the alcohol, rum or kirsch, is stirred in off the heat so its aroma is not driven off; an apricot glaze then seals the surface and keeps the soaked cake glossy.
Variations
The closest relative is the baba au rhum, the same family of dough but baked small, often with raisins, and soaked in rum syrup. The savarin Chantilly fills the ring with whipped cream, while versions called savarin aux fruits crown it with fresh or poached fruit. The grander gâteau Brillat-Savarin and the individual gorenflot belong to the same lineage created by the Julien brothers.
On the Palate
Where Savarin sits in the French flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8
How it's made
7 steps · 1 hour
- 120 min
Make an enriched yeast dough by beating flour, yeast, eggs, sugar, salt, and soft butter until smooth and elastic.
Watch outBeat the dough until smooth and elastic — a strong, well-developed gluten web is what lets the baked ring drink syrup without dissolving.
- 260 min
Let the dough rise until doubled, then beat it down briefly.
- 330 min
Pipe or spoon the dough into a buttered ring (savarin) mould, filling it part way, and let it prove to the rim.
- 425 min
Bake until risen, deep golden, and springy.
- 510 min
Meanwhile simmer a sugar syrup, take it off the heat, and stir in the rum or kirsch.
- 615 min
Turn out the warm cake and ladle the warm syrup over it repeatedly until fully soaked.
Watch outLadle warm syrup over the warm cake repeatedly until fully soaked through — cold or rushed and it wets only the surface.
- 710 min
Brush with warmed apricot glaze, then fill the centre with cream or fruit and chill before serving.
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