A savarin is a French ring-shaped yeasted cake, soaked in a rum- or kirsch-infused syrup. It is similar in construction to a baba au rhum, but uses different spirits and is always ring-shaped; however, the two cakes are close enough that confusion between them is common.
The cake is named in honor of the French politician Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who is famed for being the author of one of the first gastronomic memoirs, Physiologie du goût ("The Physiology of Taste"). The original recipe for the cake was as one component of
Bordure de pommes Brillat-Savarin, which is built around a ring cake steeped in rum syrup is topped with stewed apples in a rum-flavoured crème pâtissière. This cake was originally called a "Brillat-Savarin;" the name was eventually shortened to savarin.