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Mr. Fabrizio Mangoni, "``just like Stanislao, an urbanist and a gourmet", as he describes himself, recounted the former Polish king’s alleged invention of the ''babà'' in even more colour:

As we shall see, ''Larousse Gastronomique'' isn’t much more reliable than ''Astérix'' as a source of historical knowledge. After all, why would Stanislas take an Alsatian ''kouglof'' and steep it in Alsatian ''kirsch'' while staying in Lorraine? Was this recipë really developed by the king himself or rather by one of his pastrycooks, such as the aforementioned Stohrer? And most importantly, why would a Pole name a cake after some Arab guy, if the word ''"``baba"'' had already meant "``bundt cake" in his own native language for centuries?

Bender, a town in what is now Transnistria (between Moldova and Ukraine), was where King Charles stayed for a few years after Poltava and the only place in the Ottoman Empire where Stanisław spent any amount of time. He never was in Constantinople, let alone in an Ottoman prison. Eventually (1714), Charles gave him the Swedish-owned Duchy of Two Bridges (now Zweibrücken, Germany), where the former Polish king, inspired by Ottoman architecture, built himself a little palace he called Tschifflik (from Turkish ''"``çiftlik"'', or "``farm"). Unfortunately, Stanisław had to move out after his Swedish protector passed away (1718), so he moved to a modest palace in nearby Wissembourg. It’s a town in Alsace, a border region which by that point had belonged to France for almost forty years, but was still mostly German-speaking (Alsace would later change hands between Germany and France like a ping pong ball, eventually staying with the latter). Maybe Stanisław would have stayed there for the rest of his life, if not for an unexpected visit by matchmakers from Versailles, who asked him for his daughter’s hand in the name of King Louis XV of France. And so Princess Marie Leszczyńska married Louis, seven years her junior, and proved to be a perfect wife (she would give him ten children without getting much in the way of his many extramarital liaisons), while her parents, who wanted to be closer to their only living daughter, moved into Chambord, one of the most luxurious ''châteaux'' of the Loire Valley.

The war ended with Augustus III staying on the Polish throne. As a&nbsp;consolation prize, Louis XV gave his dad-in-law the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar (1737), where Leszczyński lived out his years while still being addressed as "``king" and where, in the words of Voltaire, he was "``able to do more good than all the Sarmatian [that is, Polish] kings ever managed to do on the banks of the Vistula."<ref>{{Cyt

}}</ref> Lorrainers still remember Leszczyński as King Stanislas the Good (''Stanislas le Bienfaisant''), even though he earned this moniker largely due to the "``good tsar, bad boyars" principle, finally living his dream of reigning as a&nbsp;charitable enlightened monarch surrounding himself with artists and philosophers, while leaving the day-to-day chores of running the government to his French chancellor, the widely hated Marquis de La Galaizière.

Although Stanislas and the Wettins of Saxony were fierce political rivals, they were united in their love of good food, sweets, wine and women. In Poland, the reign of Augustus III finally brought a&nbsp;period of long-sought peace, now known as the "``Saxon Carnival", when the Polish nobility lived out the proverb:

Meanwhile, Stanislas, in his "``little Versailles" at Lunéville, hosted Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu, enjoyed the theatre of automata in his exotic gardens and stuffed his face with fantastic creations sculpted from sugar and ice cream by his court confectioner Joseph Gillers. He got terribly fat, yet still outlived Augustus III; he chose not to fight for the Polish throne again, though, leaving Empress Catherine the Great of Russia to pick his namesake, Stanisław Poniatowski, as Poland’s new (and last) king (1764).

{{Video|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvXyhC27buU|szer=300|poz=right|opis=Eugeniusz Bodo singing ''"``Ach te baby"'' in Michał Waszyński's 1933 film ''Zabawka'' (''Toy'')}}The Polish word ''"``baba"'' is unusually rich in meanings. In its original Proto-Slavic sense, it refers to a&nbsp;grandmother or, by extension, any elderly lady. In old Polish, the same word was used for any peasant woman and is still used to describe an uncouth, boorish hag. Other meanings include "``female street vendor", "``herbalist", "``midwife" and "``witch" (as in the most famous Slavic witch, Baba Yaga). A&nbsp;''"``baba"'' may even refer to a&nbsp;married or widowed woman of any age, as in ''"``moja baba"'', or "``my wife". You can use the diminutive form, ''"``babka"'', for a&nbsp;young and attractive woman, much like the ''"``babà"'' in the Neapolitan dialect of Italian. But don’t overdo it, because if you diminutize the word even further, you’re gonna get a&nbsp;''"``babcia"'', or "``granny".<ref>{{Cyt

In Polish grammar, the plural and genitive form of ''"``baba"'' is ''"``baby"'' (pronounced: {{pron|bah|bih}}, not {{pron|bay|bee}}). You can sometimes see in Poland some half-translated labels, like ''"``żel do mycia baby"'', which was probably meant to say "``baby-washing gel", but actually says "``crone-washing gel". When interwar Poland’s top heart-throb Eugeniusz Bodo sang "``''ach te baby''" `` in the 1930s, he wasn’t addressing his one and only baby; he meant all women in general. Or did he mean the cakes?

So which of these multiple meanings gave rise to ''"``baba"'', the bundt cake? Did the cake use to resemble a&nbsp;[https://www.google.com/search?q=baby+kamienne&tbm=isch pagan stone idol,] which is also called ''"``baba"'' in Polish? Or does the cake’s name come from its resemblance to a&nbsp;peasant woman’s long pleated skirt? Or perhaps it comes from the fact that it’s always been old women who were most experienced in the tricky art of yeast-cake baking?

After all, baking a&nbsp;beautiful, tall, airy ''baba'' was one of the most demanding tasks Polish home cooks ever had to face. Great care was needed to prevent the cake from sinking or browning a&nbsp;little too much. A&nbsp;housewife who aimed for the perfect ''baba'' had to start by choosing the best ingredients – high-quality wheat flour, good beer yeast and fresh butter. The oven had to be heated as much as possible, so that it could keep a&nbsp;constant temperature for a&nbsp;long time. The moulds had to be perfectly clean before being filled with dough and popped into the oven. Then came the almost magical practices whose goal was to prevent the ''baba'' from "``catching a cold" and falling. Doors and windows were sealed to avoid draughts, women walked on their toes and talked in whispers when close to the oven, and finally, the ''baba'' was gently placed on down pillows for cooling. And, of course, no men were allowed in the kitchen; the baking of a&nbsp;''baba'' was a&nbsp;''baby''-only affair.<ref>{{Cyt

In any case, the word ''"``baba"'' was used in the sense of "``bundt cake" at least as early as the 17th century,<ref>{{Cyt

While the word ''"``baba"'' is without a&nbsp;doubt of Slavic origin (so there’s never been a&nbsp;need to borrow it from Arabic), there is no reason to believe that a&nbsp;turban-shaped yeast cake is a&nbsp;native Polish, or generally Slavic, invention. The same kind of cake has been known, under various names, throughout central Europe, from the Netherlands, to Alsace, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech lands, Poland, to Russia. In German-speaking territories it’s known as ''"``Gugelhupf"'' or ''"``Kugelhupf"''. The ''Kugelhupf'' didn’t always have to be sweet, as evidenced by the tradition of former eastern Poland, where they still bake a&nbsp;potato casserole with onions and bacon (the Jews make it too, but without the bacon) and call it "``potato ''babka", "``kugel", "``kugiel"'' or ''"``kugelis"''.

The origin of this German name is even more mysterious than that of the Polish ''"``baba"''. ''"``Kugel"'' means "``a ball" in modern German, but the cake was never baked in such a shape. Perhaps ''"``Gugel"'' comes from Latin ''"``cucullus"'', or "``a hood", while ''"``Hupf"'' is the equivalent of "``hop" (as in jumping)? But what would a&nbsp;jumping hood have to do with a&nbsp;bundt cake? According to a&nbsp;pair of famous German etymologists, brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (who also collected German folk tales as part of their linguistic studies), a&nbsp;yeast cake would grow so fast that it jumped, but it’s possible that what they recorded was just folk etymology. Or maybe it has something to do with prancing around at weddings, where bundt cakes were often served?

This kind of cake was especially popular in Alsace, particularly on special occasions, such as weddings or the Three Kings Day (Epiphany). The Alsatians have come up with some legends to explain the name of this cake, known as ''"``Kugelhopf"'' in the local dialect of German. According to one legend, it was invented by an Alsatian priest, whose name was Gérard Kugelhopf.<ref>{{Cyt

Somehow, along the way, ''"``baba"'' has lost its original feminine gender and its association with women, becoming a&nbsp;masculine noun in both French (''"``le baba"'') and, later, Italian (''"``il babà"''), which may explain how the Ali Baba connection may have seemed plausible to non-Slavs.

Soaking individual helpings of dry cake in wine, coffee or chocolate is surely an old practice, but it’s not the same as soaking an entire bundt cake prior to serving. Whose idea was it then? We don’t know. We do know, however, that in 1845 Auguste Julien, a&nbsp;co-owner of a&nbsp;pastry shop at Place de la Bourse in Paris, expanded his offer by introducing small babas with candied orange zest instead of raisins and imbibed with rum (or kirsch)-based syrup. And because, as we already know, the French prefer those dishes that they can associate with celebrities, he named this new kind of baba ''"``savarin"''<ref>M. Krondl, ''op. cit.'', p. 172</ref> – after the famous gourmet Jean-Anthelme Brillat, who changed his name to Savarin (or was it his father?), so that he could inherit his aunt’s property.<ref>{{Cyt

As for the distinctive shape of the ''baba'' or ''Gugelhupf'', sometimes also known the "``Turk's head", such moulds were already used by the Romans ca. 200 CE.<ref>{{Cyt

History also came full circle when recipës for Polish ''baby'' came back to Poland, but "``improved" by the addition of alcohol-laced syrup. Here’s one, with arak-based punch, rather than rum, added to the dough before baking: