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Preparation
30 minutes
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Cooking
6 hours 15 minutes
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Difficulty
Easy
If you have been to the Mekong Delta, you are surely familiar with the coconut leaf cake that is soft, chewy, and delicious. This cake is a specialty of Ben Tre and is a perfect combination of the rich sticky rice layer blended with the sweet and sour filling of red bananas. Let’s get cooking with TasteVN!
Ingredients for Ben Tre Coconut Leaf Cake For about 25 pieces
Sticky rice 2 kg White beans 150 gr Siamese bananas 20 fruits Sugar 100 gr Coconut milk 1 liter Salt 1 teaspoon Coconut leaves 40 leaves
How to choose fresh and delicious ingredients
How to choose delicious sticky rice
- Choose sticky rice grains that are large, uniform in size, opaque white, shiny on the outside, and not broken.
- Avoid choosing sticky rice grains that are dusty, have fuzz, or are yellow in color.
- In addition, good sticky rice will have a natural, characteristic aroma of rice. On the other hand, sticky rice that has been stored for a long time will often lose its scent and will not maintain its deliciousness when cooked.
- You can taste the sticky rice with your mouth; if it has a slight sweetness and no strange odor, it is good sticky rice.
- You can refer to delicious sticky rice varieties such as: yellow flower sticky rice, Tu Le sticky rice, Dien Bien mountain sticky rice, goose sticky rice, and velvet sticky rice.
How to choose delicious white beans
- Choose beans with a smooth, shiny skin, a glossy color, with a distinct black spot in the middle that is not faded, and the beans should be uniform without any bumps or tiny spots.
- Additionally, if you press on the beans and they feel firm, not hollow inside or easily crumbling, then they are still fresh.
- Moreover, when smelling, you should not detect any musty or strange odors.
How to choose fresh bananas
- For this type of cake, you should buy black Siamese bananas for their delicious flavor.
- Choose a bunch of bananas that are not evenly colored (some ripe, some green) and have dark or deep pink spots.
- Avoid choosing bananas that are all uniformly ripe with a deep yellow skin.
- Naturally ripened bananas will have a yellow stem and body. If the stem is green but the fruit is uniformly yellow, it definitely has been soaked in chemicals.
- Tree-ripened bananas will have a fragrant smell and natural sweetness, and will be uniformly soft. On the other hand, chemically treated bananas will feel slightly hard, firm, have astringent and sour taste.
How to make Bến Tre coconut leaf cake
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Prepare the filling ingredients
First, wash 2kg of sticky rice thoroughly with water several times and let it drain.
Next, soak 150g of white beans in water for about 3 – 4 hours and rinse them clean.
Then, peel the banana skin and fibers and place them in a bowl large enough, then marinate for 2 hours with 100g of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt. After marinating the bananas, use a knife to cut the bananas in half.
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Rolling coconut leaves to wrap the cake
Each cake will use about 2 coconut leaves, you cut off the leaf veins, wipe the surface clean, then perform the rolling step.
First, you bend back a piece of coconut leaf (about 5cm) upwards and secure it with a toothpick. Then, you continue to roll the coconut leaf so that it wraps tightly around the piece of coconut that was secured earlier.
Continue rolling until the leaves are finished, then you attach the second coconut leaf and continue the rolling. When you are close to the tip of the leaf (the pointed end), use a toothpick to secure it and you are done.
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Sauté sticky rice and mix beans
Place a pan on the stove, add the drained sticky rice, 1 liter of coconut milk, stir the mixture over low heat until the coconut milk is absorbed into the sticky rice grains, and the sticky rice is soft and sticky, then turn off the heat.
When the sticky rice is done, add 150g of softened white beans and mix well.
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Stuff the filling and wrap the cake
First, put a little sticky rice filling inside the coconut leaf. Then, create a small hole and place the banana in the center.
Next, spread a little more sticky rice evenly on top and use string to tightly tie both ends.
Then, use 4 strings to tie the cake, 2 strings to tie it horizontally and the other 2 strings to stand the cake up and tie it again, remember to tighten it so that the filling inside is compressed securely.
Do the same until all the prepared ingredients are used up.
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Boil the cake
Boil 1 pot of water, then put the cake in to boil over medium heat for 6 hours until cooked. After boiling the cake, hang it up so that it can drain and cool down faster.
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Final Product
The coconut leaf cake has a soft and chewy sticky rice layer, rich with the flavor of coconut milk, along with a hint of nuttiness from the white beans, and the banana filling inside is pleasantly sweet and sour, extremely delicious.
This cake is very suitable for a quick breakfast or as a snack in the late afternoon, which is also great!
Hope that with the detailed recipe and instructions from TasteVN, you can successfully make the delicious and attractive Ben Tre pandan cake!
*Source of the recipe and images from the YouTube channel Hương Vị Quê Nhà Vlog
