Perfect for a fall or winter brunch, this versatile cake can be made with almost any combination of dried fruits and nuts you like. I love the tangy flavor of dried cranberries, and they’re a perfect contrast to the sweet dough and icing and the richness of the nuts in this cake.

A baba should be a buttery, yeast-risen cake, low in sugar, soaked in a seasoned syrup to flavor it and make it moist. Unfortunately, what most pastry shops prepare are rather large, fine-textured babas that develop an unattractively sodden texture after they are soaked, in what is usually a syrup flavored with inferior liqueurs or fruit juices. So, most people look at a baba and flee.

These babas are quite different from those described above. They are tiny, so their rich sweetness is a pleasant mouthful; they are a bit coarse-textured, so they don’t become soggy after being soaked; and the syrup is flavored with orange liqueur and orange juice, which contributes a fresher taste than the usual rum and spices.

This popular Austrian cake (prepared in Alsace as well as Germany) probably migrated to France with Stanislaw Leszczynski, the exiled king of Poland who set up court in Nancy, capital of the Lorraine. The king was a legendary baker and he is credited variously with having introduced the baba and the savarin to France. Perhaps his interest in bread was passed on to his daughter Maria, who married Louis XV and became queen of France.

Perfect for a fall or winter brunch, this versatile cake can be made with almost any combination of dried fruits and nuts you like. I love the tangy flavor of dried cranberries, and they’re a perfect contrast to the sweet dough and icing and the richness of the nuts in this cake.