10 Traditional Homemade Cakes Essential for Tet in Central Vietnam

Alongside Tet cakes, meat, and sausage, during Tet, people in Central Vietnam also have many delicious traditional cakes.

10 Traditional Cakes That Cannot Be Missed During Tet in Central Vietnam

1. Ancestor Worship Cake

Ancestor Worship Cake - a name that evokes ancestral reverence - is a distinctive cake of the people of Quang region. The cake is a delicate combination of glutinous rice, brown sugar, fresh ginger, and sesame seeds. The mold is intricately woven from bamboo and banana leaves, carefully lined with leaves, tightly wrapped, and sealed with bamboo sticks.

When eaten, it can be sliced and consumed immediately or grilled over charcoal or fried in oil, both emitting a delightful aroma. The cake is made during Tet and enjoyed throughout the spring season.

2. Tet Cake

Similar to those in the North, Tet cakes in Central Vietnam have firm outer layers, filled with green beans (for vegetarian options) or with added pork (for savory ones). The cakes are cylindrical in shape, and when sliced, they form beautiful and uniform circles.

A pair of Tet cakes ceremoniously displayed on the altar, along with slices of delicious Tet cake served with pickled onions, is indispensable during Tet celebrations here. After Tet, leftover Tet cakes can be fried to a crispy golden brown, a simple yet delicious dish.

3. Rolled Cake

As a traditional and affordable dish, rolled cakes have long been familiar to families in Central Vietnam during every Tet season. The main ingredient is fragrant sticky rice selected from the previous harvest, combined with various ingredients such as tomatoes, kumquats, carrots, winter melons, bananas, ginger, and a few slices of pineapple... All are thinly sliced, stir-fried with small fire until the mixture thickens into a jam.

The rice portion is carefully roasted, ground, or finely crushed into flour, then mixed thoroughly with sugar water until it becomes sticky. The rice flour and jam are mixed together, compressed into long cylindrical blocks, and when eaten, they are cut into small rounds, presenting a colorful appearance.

4. Exploding Cake

For the people of Quang Ngai, exploding cakes not only appear during Tet holidays but also are a famous specialty alongside brown sugar. Made from roasted glutinous rice on red-hot charcoal, they produce joyful popping sounds, perhaps deriving their name from the baking process.

The popped rice grains, beautifully white, are pressed into rectangular wooden frames. Sugar (molasses) is heated into a sticky consistency, with a hint of ginger added before spreading around the cake. Thus, the cake has the fragrant aroma of glutinous rice and ginger, combined with the sweetness of molasses, and its crispy texture creates an enjoyable eating experience.

5. Consistency Cake

Consistency cake is a traditional delicacy of coastal provinces in our country. A simple cake made from plain flour (sometimes replaced with wheat flour), cornstarch, eggs, a little sugar, vanilla, and vegetable oil, yet it exudes a delightful aroma that attracts passersby.

When properly made, consistency cake will have a golden color, blossoming like flowers. The cake feels quite heavy, with a slightly chewy and soft texture, not overly sweet like other Tet cakes, so it can be enjoyed continuously without feeling overwhelmed.

6. Printed Cake

A familiar cake for people in the Central region during ancestral worship on every Tet holiday, printed cakes now come with many new flavors and diverse designs, but fundamentally maintain their traditional essence with the main ingredient being glutinous rice flour.

To create the deliciously fragrant and sweet white printed cake, pandan leaves, pomelo blossom water, and lime essence are added – ingredients that carry the soul of Vietnamese countryside. After being processed, the flour is placed into molds, forming square or round shapes with intricate patterns like fish, flowers, dragons, and phoenixes, exquisite and beautiful.

7. Suse Cake

Suse cake (xu xê, phu thê) is not only used by people in the Central region for weddings but also widely consumed on traditional Tet occasions. The cake is made from glutinous rice flour, mung bean filling, shredded coconut, sometimes with peanuts or lotus seeds added. These ingredients are mixed together, wrapped in banana leaves (or coconut leaves), and when eaten, it has a chewy, crunchy texture and a balanced sweetness.

Suse cakes come in various colors, ivory white, yellow, green from pandan leaves, or red, depending on the natural ingredients added by the cake makers to make them more appealing and eye-catching.

8. Thorn Leaf Cake

Thorn leaf cake is a specialty of the land of martial arts, Binh Dinh, later spreading and becoming famous in the culinary culture of the Central region. No matter how far they go, the natives never forget the shape of these cakes, resembling ancient Cham towers.

To make delicious thorn leaf cakes, it must go through many steps. First is to find thorn leaves, slightly rough, spongy, dry, wash them clean, boil until soft, drain, then grind them finely in a mortar, if not finely ground, the cake will not be smooth. Sticky rice used is new, fragrant, moderately sticky, mixed with brown sugar. The filling consists of green beans, coconut, sugar, with added cinnamon and vanilla to create fragrance. The cakes are wrapped in clean banana leaves and steamed. When eating, just gently peel off the green banana leaf layer to reveal the shiny black skin of the cake, full of attraction.

9. Green Bean Cake

Green bean cake is a dish that bears the hallmark of the homeland, making people from Hoi An always nostalgic. The flour for making Hoi An green bean cakes is made from small-seeded green beans, mixed with sugar water in the right proportion to ensure the dough is neither too dry nor too sticky.

The filling is added with a little lard, sugar, salt, etc., pressed tightly into molds, and when baked, it emits an extremely attractive aroma. In the cool weather of the early days of the year, enjoying grilled green bean cakes with hot tea and chatting with visitors at home is truly a delightful and elegant experience.

10. Bamboo Shoot Cake

In the ancient capital of Hue, on the ancestral altar of every family during Tet Nguyen Dan, there is always the presence of bamboo shoot cakes. These cakes are square-shaped, wrapped in glossy transparent colored paper. Although the ingredients are simple, cheap, and easy to find, the execution process is very elaborate, as people often praise the meticulousness in the culinary culture of Hue.

Sweet bamboo shoot cake is made from glutinous rice, mixed in that smooth flour layer are strands of bamboo shoots, crispy yet tender, creating a very distinctive flavor that is difficult to confuse with other traditional cakes.

According to Trí Thức Trẻ

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Reference: Mytour Travel Handbook