Da Mai ‘gio’ cake

Da Mai ‘gio’ cake (Da Mai ward, Bac Giang city) is made from yellow flower sticky rice soaked in water with ash taken from amaranth and dried grapefruit peel, then mixed with clear lime water in a reasonable ratio.

The cake is wrapped with ‘dong’ leaves and boiled for 5-6 hours. When completed, Da Mai ‘gio’ cake has amber color. It is served with molasses to have a sweet taste that is easy to eat and beneficial for the digestive system.

Ke rice pancake

Ke rice pancake (Dinh Ke ward, Bac Giang city) has a larger size than ordinary rice pancakes. The ingredients to make delicious rice pancakes are flour milled from delicious rice mixed with ripe ‘gac’ (sweet gourd). 

To make the pancake, people spread a thin layer of flour on the bamboo screen, sprinkle sesame and crushed peanuts on the surface of the pancake and then dry it. When eating, they bake Ke rice pancake on a charcoal stove so that the pancake is evenly cooked and fragrant.

Dong Quan plain rice flan

Dong Quan village (Yen Dung district, Bac Giang) is home to a long-standing craft of cooking plain rice flans. In order to make white flans, when holding them, they are not sticking to the hands, one must choose delicious plain rice, soak and then grind it into powder and mix it with clear lime water. 

Before pouring the powder into the pot, it is necessary to coat the pot with a layer of fat, then stir the flour mixture well. Finally, take out and sprinkle boiled peanuts and thin coconut slices on top. When the flan is cooled, people put it on a basket with fresh banana leaf and cut it into small pieces to enjoy with soy sauce.

Luc Ngan ‘vat vai’ cake

Just like ‘chung’ cake and ‘tet’ cake of the Kinh people, ‘vat vai’ cake is made by the Cao Lan ethnic group in Luc Ngan district to offer to ancestors during the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday. 

The cake is processed through many stages of grinding glutinous rice into flour, boiling wormwood leaves in clear lime water to eliminate bitterness, grinding the leaves and mixing them with glutinous flour to make cake covers. The filling consists of green beans mixed with sugar. After baking the young banana leaves, people pack the cake and boil it for about 2 hours until the cake is cooked.

Luc Ngan ‘hut’ cake

‘Hut’ cake is a specialty of Luc Ngan region, made from glutinous rice flour, cabbage and molasses. After washing and pounding the vegetable, people squeeze it to take water to mix with glutinous rice flour and then mold it like making the ‘troi’ cake. 

The cake is fried in a hot oil pan until it turns golden brown and then dropped into a pot of molasses simmered on the side to absorb the molasses (hence it is named ‘hut’ (absorbing) cake). Finally, the cake is taken out from the pot and rolled over glutinous rice flour so that the molasses does not flow out.

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