Published:  16:43 Tuesday - January 24, 2017

Bánh da lợn or bánh da heo (literally "pig skin cake") is a Vietnamese steamed layer cake made from tapioca starch, rice flour, mashed mung beans, taro, or durian, coconut milk and/or water, and sugar. It is sweet and gelatinously soft in texture, with thin (approximately 1 cm) colored layers alternating with layers of mung bean, durian, or taro filling.

These petite cakes with soft colors look like a work of art and take a lot of time to make. 

Banh Da Lon Sai Gon specially flavored new glutinous rice flour is made from newly harvested grain to make a sleek and shiny surface. Green beans stuffed with cake have a small seed and yellow color inside. The seeds are washed and thoroughly steamed and then pureed.

The cake’s shape and color is very important, so cake makers have to be skillful. During cake making, cake makers take coconut milk, Pandan leaf (for green color). Coconut milk, tapioca starch, glutinous flour, sugar divided in half, one half can be mixed with green bean, half of the remaining mixed with pandan leaf, filtered through a sieve.

Cakes are steamed in a small heart-shaped mold, leaf or flower mold or in a bigger mold and are cut into small square pieces.

Before steaming, cover an oil layer inside mold and place the mold into steam pot. Pour a layer of pandan leaf mixture into the mold, then steam, next pour mung bean paste. Do the same until dough is harder orfull in the mold. When the last layer is finished, wait for cake turn cool, then remove from the mold.