Travis Barker Turns 47: All About His French Boozy Birthday Cake
Image Credit: Travis Barker/Instagram, His rum baba birthday cake is a delightful treat.

American rock band drummer Travis Barker had a sensational birthday bash this year. Joined by his wife, American reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian, and friends, the birthday boy enjoyed the day to the most. What caught our eye was his interesting birthday cake. He took to his Instagram stories to share a glimpse of the sweet treat and we were left wondering what it could be.

Unlike usual birthday cakes which are gigantic and filled with cream, this one was petite and light, with a scoop of what looked like ice cream on top. Travis posted a picture of the same and wrote “grateful” on it. After doing some research, we found out that his birthday cake was actually a French dessert, called Rum Baba.

Also known as Baba Au Rhum, the name clearly suggests that it is a boozy dessert. It originates from an Eastern European cake, called babka, which means ‘old woman’ or ‘grandmother’ in the regional language, while the word ‘baba’ is a derivative of the same. It is said that the cake is a Polish-French specialty that came into being in the late 19th Century. Legend has it that a Polish king was sent to exile and during his time in Lorraine, a town in France, he brought babka with him and experimented with it by adding Hungarian wine to make it soft and moist.

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However, the present-day for Rum Baba emerged only later when his daughter married King Louis XV. During this time, her pastry chef brought this boozy babka idea to the region and tried moistening it with rum and added dried fruits to it. That’s how Rum Baba was popularised in France, and it later spread to the other parts of the world. The good part about this cake is that it is made with a yeast batter that is left overnight in the fridge to rise and baked the next day.

That’s what lends the cake its fluffiness. Another interesting fact about this cake is that it is usually made in small portions, meant for one individual, unlike most cakes that are huge and generally cut into slices. These days, you’ll often find the babka base filled with pastry cream and fruits.