SAVARIN

I briefly chatted about Savarin here but surely the famous recipe deserves a post of its own and here it is.

A variation of Baba au Rhum, Savarin was developed in 1845 by two French pastrymakers and named after the magistrate, politician, gastronomist and culinary author Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826). It became an immediate success with French gourmets, like Brillat-Savarin's Physionomie du Goût that's been always in print since 1825. The dessert is quite extraordinary: it's loaded with butter, eggs, sugar, and cream and often garnished with crème pâtissière or Chantilly.

As far as gastronomy is concerned, Brillat-Savarin was a follower of Epicurus. The Greek philosopher, who lived in the Hellenistic period, advocated a life of wisdom, beauty, and justice but maintainted that none of these goods could be enjoyed without pleasure. He also believed in the pursuit of happiness, calm, and friendship. Unfortunately his ideals were misunderstood even during his lifetime. Pleasure was interpreted as something to do exclusively with satisfying bodily needs. The original ideas of Epicurus were adopted by several thinkers of the French Enlightenment as well as people of authority, like Brillat-Savarin who opposed gluttony. In his best-selling treatise on gastronomy, he claimed that simple meals were better than gourmet dishes, so long as they were carefully prepared. Educated in chemistry and medicine (as well as the Law), he strongly recocmmended a low-carb diet. Whether his followers, the culinary experts, believed in moderation is uncertain. A well-ripened French cheese developed around 1890 was renamed forty years later after Brillat-Savarin. It was soft, creamy, with 72% fat and packed with excess calories, just like the dessert. A specially designed mould for baking Savarin was also named after the French gastronomist.

 

 

Paris in the 1840s: Boulevard des Italiens (Eugène Lami)

 

Savarin recipes were published in most best-selling cookbooks of the Victorian era. Elaborate versions were authored by professional chefs but there were also recipes that most urban families could easily afford. In order to re-create a more or less faithful version of the original Savarin at home, I looked up nineteenth century recipes from three different countries:

• FRANCE. As featured in The royal cookery book (1880) by Jules & Alphonse Gouffé, this version could feed several people. The dough was leavened with a sponge starter. The Anisette-flavored syrup, in which the finished cake was drenched, truly relieved the senses but the percentage of animal fat was probably  a little too high for a dessert that was named after a follower of Epicurus.
• ENGLAND. Cassells new universal cookery (1894) by Lizzie Heritage featured a modest version of Savarin using less butter, eggs, and cream for the same amount of flour. At the end of the recipe, the author warned her readers that more authentic versions were published in other cookbooks.
  
• ITALY. A recipe with even less butter was featured in Science and the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (1891) by Pellegrino Artusi. No doubt the Italian author had read the work of Brillat-Savarin because he quoted him in the introductory note of his own chapter on sauces. However, he didn't know exactly how the dessert came to be named after the gastronomist and labelled it as 'Savarin' only because he thought it worthy of the French cuisine.
  

 

 

 

 

SAVARIN

This is Pellegrino Artusi' s recipe, doubled. I usually don't adapt his recipes but this time I did - in the following ways: a) "30g of sugar in two fingers of water" result in different amounts if boiled in different cookpots so I made 2 cups of ordinary syrup with one part water one part sugar, and flavored it accordingly b) I didn't make the starter into a loaf as Pellegrino Artusi suggests for both his Savarin and Baba au Rhum; I made a sponge, as in the other recipes - by Gouffé brothers and Lizzie Heritage, c) I used bread flour in my version because I thought the dough would rise more easily; during the mixing process, I added 50g of flour so the batter was a little dense, though still a batter. Most recipes suggest kneading all the ingredients except butter, leaving the dough to rise until doubled in bulk, adding the butter gradually, fitting the dough into a prepared mould, and leaving to rise again. By contrast, Pellegrino Artusi proposed mixing all the ingredients except milk, which should be added gradually before the dough was left to rise until doubled in bulk. He also suggested leaving out some of the milk if the dough was too runny. Even so, his dough was really a batter and left to rise once.

I n g r e d i e n t s

for the dough:

4 cups plain flour (450g)

1/2 cup butter (120g)

4/5 cups sugar (80g)

1/2 cup slivered almonds (optional) (80g)

3/4 cups whole milk (180ml)

2 eggs + 2 yolks

a pinch of salt

1 1/2tsp dried yeast (5g)

for the syrup:

2 cups sugar (400g)

2 cups water (480ml)

1tsp vanilla sugar

5tbsp Kirsch or rum

M e t h o d

1. To make the sponge starter, heat 60ml milk until lukewarm. Combine with the yeast and as much flour as needed to form a batter. Sprinkle with a little flour, cover, and leave to rise until doubled in bulk, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the remaining flour with the salt. 2. Heat the remaining milk with the butter and sugar until lukewarm. Whisk the eggs and yolks, stir into the milk, butter & sugar mixture, and heat until a thermometer reads 35o-38oC. 3. Combine the sponge starter with the solid and liquid ingredients and transfer to a Savarin mould that you have buttered and floured and scattered with the almonds (if using). 3. Cover with a towel and leave to rise until doubled in bulk, about 3-4 hours or longer, depending on the room temperature. When almost ready, preheat the oven to 180oC. 4. Bake until golden, about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the syrup: Cook the caster sugar and water until boiling point. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla sugar and Kirsch or rum. Upturn the hot cake onto a plate. Place a cake ring around it and a glass at its centre, to help keep its shape while you prick with a skewer, pour most of the hot syrup all over the cake with a spoon and brush the surface with the rest of it. Allow the Savarin to cool before you remove the cake ring and glass. I recommend serving the next day when the syrup is completely absorbed.

 

N o t e s

Savarin is usually accompanied with fresh fruit and/or whipped cream. When neutral-flavored brandy is used in the syrup, the finished cake is glazed with apricot jam. Some recipes call for more alcohol and others for more sugar in the syrup but it's usually Baba au Rhum that is more intensely flavored.