Hanoi begins in the winter, when the hearts of “food lovers” in the capital are anxious for something hot. And if to choose the most suitable dish, which is both light and not heavy, and makes you flutter when enjoying, it can only be drift cake.

The origin of the floating cake

According to many sources, Dumplings are originally from China’s effervescent dishes and were introduced to Vietnam through overseas Chinese. In the process of integration, effervescent also had many changes to suit the local friends, and then the cake drifting was born.

Specifically, the effervescent ball is smaller, and the cake is larger, but the ingredients are basically the same, the shell is glutinous flour, the filling is black sesame or green beans. In particular, these cakes cannot be without the broth cooked with cane sugar and a little ginger.

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Photo: @bachuaviahe.

Dumpling cake is a hot dish, both the cake and the broth are simmered on the stove to ensure that when a guest orders a bowl of cake, it must be hot, enough to warm the hands that are freezing because of the sweet cold of winter. And the heat of the bowl of cakes helps to smell the flour and sugar more sweetly, making the stomachs of the diners even more rumbling.

What’s in a bowl of drift cake?

To make a bowl of floating cake, one needs to do quite a lot of work and meticulousness. The rice to make flour must be delicious glutinous rice. Glutinous flour after being mixed with a little water will be kneaded into soft, flexible and smooth blocks. After you see that it is no longer sticky, you will bring it to brew for about half an hour and divide it into small pieces, round and drop into the boiling pot.

Usually, a bowl of Dumpling Cake will have 2 to 3 cakes and always have enough sesame and green beans, unless you tell them to eat only a certain type of filling. Do you wonder why the salesperson can distinguish the white powder, as big as the egg, with any filling? That’s because right from the time of molding, the seller has already shaped the shape for each type of filling, for example, the sesame filling is round, and the bean paste is a bit flat.

Photo: @mattysblog.

Photo: @fuongsfood.

How to decorate a basic bowl of floating cake after scooping the cake, the water will be sprinkled with a little more sesame, a little grated coconut. Recently, some shops will add a little fat of coconut milk. It can be said that the “soul” of the bowls of floating cakes lies in the special pot of broth served with the cakes.

After the sugar and water are boiled, people will add a few slices of ginger to make the broth fragrant and warm. When the sugar has melted, the freshly boiled Dumplings are dropped in and simmered to absorb evenly and then scooped out into a bowl. You can decorate your bowl of floating cake with a little bit of roasted peanuts or coconut milk or grated coconut.

Photo: @corymay81.

Although the ingredients for making Dumpling Cake are very simple, but that simple thing gradually becomes an inseparable part of Hanoi cuisine. On cold winter afternoons, it’s easy to get hungry and easily… craving all kinds of things, and among the many delicious dishes of Hanoi, many people still crave a bowl of hot, fragrant steamed rice cakes. Not only because of its sweetness, but because of its flexible, aromatic, spicy, and fleshy taste, it is really perfect to soothe both an hungry stomach and a sad soul on gray winter afternoons.