Rum baba with milk ice cream and English raspberries

Begin by making the ice cream so it has time to freeze and churn. Mix the sugar, dextrose, stabiliser and salt together in a bowl. Bring the milk to the boil and remove from the heat as soon as the first bubbles appear. Pour in all the dry ingredients and whisk vigorously

Once completely cooled, whisk in the cream and transfer to the ice cream machine to churn. Reserve in the freezer until needed

Next, make the babas. Place the flour in the bowl of a stand mixer with the yeast on one side and the salt on the other. Add the sugar and stir everything together with a spoon until evenly mixed

Combine the milk and eggs, scraping in the seeds from the vanilla pod, then pour this mixture over the flour. Leave the dough hook on a medium speed for approximately 10 minutes or until a smooth and glossy dough forms

Add in the softened butter bit by bit until silky and stretchy (this should take a further 5 minutes of mixing). Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave to prove for 1 hour or until doubled in size

Once the dough has doubled in volume, roll out 10 individual balls (approx. 32g each) and place into baba moulds. Leave to prove once again for 45 minutes

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3 and bake the babas for 15 minutes or until beautifully golden in colour. Leave to cool completely

Meanwhile, make the soaking syrup by placing all the ingredients except the rum in a large saucepan and bring them to the boil. Remove from the heat, add the rum and cover with cling film. Leave to infuse for at least 30 minutes or until it has cooled down to 38ºC (the temperature required to soak the babas)

Once cooled down to the correct temperature, soak the babas in the syrup for 5-7 minutes, turning them delicately throughout the whole process

Plate up the babas on their own individual plates. On the second plate, place 1 tablespoon of raspberry compote on the bottom of each dish and elegantly place the whole raspberries around the outside. Drizzle a little coulis inside each raspberry cavity and insert a quenelle of ice cream in the centre. Decorate with wood sorrel, alyssum flowers, sweet cicely and a pinch of ground black pepper