CỒN SƠN CUSTARD APPLE CAKES

No one knows why in the the Southern region, a national fruit garden, there exist this fruit-fake pastry. Some say that offerings to their ancestor need to be colorful, beautiful, and long lasting, which real fruits fail to meet. Therefore, some families have created a whole plate of 5 different fruit to prove their skills. Ingredients are glutinous rice flour, cassava flour, green bean flour and so on. Each year at Longquan Temple, nowadays known as Binh Thuy, from the other side of the Binh Thuy canal in Con Son, where locates the ancient village of Long Tuyền, custard cakes are always offered to ceremonial occasions. In 2015, when a bakery contest started, these custard cakes started to attract attention. According to DNSG online, “looking at these cakes for the very first time, guests believed that they were real custard apples because of their vivid shapes with stalks and green leaves.” It takes many stages to make custard cakes. Sticky rice is cleaned, drained, and grinded smoothly, roasted and cooked before being mixed with coconut milk and sugar. The mixture is well kneaded as in banh in. Green beans are cooked, then mixed with sugar, salt, coconut milk, and seasoned to make stuffing balls. To achieve the green color, pandan juice is used to mix with the flour. Grean been balls are wrapped by each small dough dots to make them look like real custard apples. Finally, these “apples” are coated in fresh flour mixed with sugar. Try these cakes for once and one cannot forget their chewiness, fragrance and unmistakable taste.

Collected by Linh Trang