Babà was born, between history and legend, in Poland, at the Stanislao Leszczinski's court; like all the good things, it is the fruit of chance, "seasoned" by the gluttony and the everlasting unsatisfaction of a dethroned king. Stanislao, infact, became king at about thirty years old, lost his kingdom when the tzar Peter the Great, together with his allies, Prussia and Austria, conquested Poland. But the ex king, as father in law of Luigi XV king of France, who married his daughter Mary, had been put at the head of the duchy of Lorraine against his ambitions.

This situation gave him much sadness and to fight it, he every day needed of something sweet. But it was not simple to satisfy him: the Lorraine confectioners tried to do their better to offer him always new "gluttonies", but they had not too much fantasy and two days on three, they prepared to the poor king the "kugelhupf", a typical Lorraine cake, made of fluor, butter, sugar, eggs and raisin. Then they added yeast to obtain a soft and spongy dough, but anyhow very dry and little appreciated by the king, so that one time he threw on the table the dish with the cake.

Luck and chance wanted that it knocked against a bottle of rum, the Stanislao's favourite liqueur, with that the sweet became soaked. The leaven dough of the insipid Lorraine cake, became immediately amber-coloured and began to inebriate the air with its fragrance.

Stanislao wanted to dedicate this creation to Alì Babà, the protagonist of the famous tale "The Arabian Nights", the book he liked to read during his French stay. So the "new born" babà arrived in Paris to the Sthorer confectionary's shop where a lot of people knew and appreciated it. Then the "monsù", chef of the noble Neapolitan families, took it in Naples where the babà was adopted and declined into its various shapes and enriched with creams and whipped cream according to the inspiration of the Neapolitan confectioners.