Where Do Savarins Come From?

As I mentioned below a savarin is really a baba, just in a ring shape. So depending on how far you want to trace the lineage, you could go all the way back to not-so-good-King Stanislas Leszczynski. However the true date of the savarin’s invention came over 100 years later in Paris. The year was 1844 and two brother pâtissiers by the name of Julien decided to try a variation of the rum baba, baking it in a ring-shaped mold and soaking it with (secret) citrus-infused syrup. It succeeded, and the pair shortly named their creation “savarin” after Jean Brillat-Savarin, whose collection of gastronomical essays, The Physiology of Taste was much in vogue at the time. More on him later!