Hello my friends, now I will share with you the recipe for traditional Vietnamese floating cake. Today is the 3rd day of the third lunar month, it's Cold Food Festival day or Le Hoi Han Thuc. This holiday originates from China, it's a day honoring scholar Zitui who died of fire burns, so Chinese people only eat cold food on this day and don't use fire. But in Vietnam, families often make two kinds of cakes to worship their ancestors ( Floating Cake and Mungbean Cake) - it's ancestral remembrance day. Floating cake are small white balls made from brown sugar, wrapped in glutinous rice flour, topped with toasted sesame and coconut. This delicious, soft and sweet cake is usually enjoyed any day of the year and it has become a famous snack. This dish is popular with white, but you can create it into many different colors such as: blue, red, purple, yellow, orange, .. with natural ingredients such as pandan leaves, turmeric, beets, flowers butterfly pea,.. This cake is super easy to make and the result is a delicious plate! Mungbean cake are also made of glutinous flour but they are filled with mashed mung beans and coated in tapioca sweet soup. This type of cake also appears in Vietnamese poetry, here is the poem and I found its translation on Google.
Thân em vừa trắng là vừa tròn
Bảy nồi ba chìm với nước non
Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn
Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son”
In English translation, it’s as follows:
“My body is white; my fate, softly rounded,
rising and sinking like mountains in streams.
Whatever way hands may shape me,
at center my heart is red and true.
Source
The meaning of this poem means that women have a cake-like appearance, white, smooth, and round. This poem was written in feudal times, so at that time women's lives were very painful and pitiful, they did not have the right to choose their own lives. Their lives have been dependent on others, happiness or suffering is decided by men. Although they have to live in such a bad life, the woman's heart is still honest, pure and faithful.
Here are the ingredients you need to prepare to make this cake:
- Glutinous rice flour
- Coconut
- Roasted sesame
- Brown sugar cubes
- Salt
- Water
Bột gạo nếp
Dừa
Mè rang
Đường nâu
Muối ăn
Nước
Step 1:
Use a box grater or a food processor to grate coconut or you can buy ready-made coconut grated at the market. Roast white sesame until fragrant. On these days, it is common to sell ready-made dough at the market. I bought 2kg of glutinous rice flour and kneaded them again with a few grains of salt.
Sử dụng máy xay thực phẩm để nạo dừa hoặc bạn có thể mua dừa nạo sẵn ở chợ. Rang vừng trắng cho đến khi thơm. Vào những ngày này, người ta thường bán bột đã nhào sẵn tại chợ. Mình đã mua 2kg bột gạo nếp về và nhào chúng một lần nữa với vài hạt muối.
Step 2:
Take a small piece of dough, flatten them then add a brown sugar cube in the center and roll into a smooth ball.
Lấy một miếng bột nhỏ, cán mỏng sau đó cho một viên đường nâu vào giữa và lăn thành các viên tròn nhỏ.
Step 3:
Bring the water in one pot to a boil, drop the cake balls into the pot (cooking time is 3 minutes). When the cake balls float to the surface, you must immediately take them out and then put them in a bowl of cold water. Otherwise they will stick mushy to each other. Place the floating cake balls on a plate and powder with roasted white sesame and coconut. Do not put the cake balls into the pot when the water is not boiling!!!
Đun sôi nước trong nồi, thả các viên bánh vào nồi (thời gian nấu 3 phút). Khi viên bánh nổi lên mặt nước, bạn phải vớt ngay ra sau đó cho vào tô nước lạnh. Nếu không chúng sẽ dính chặt vào nhau. Bày viên bánh trôi ra đĩa, rắc vừng trắng rang và dừa lên trên. Không được thả bánh vào nồi khi nước chưa sôi nhé!
@a-alice