Banh Man De - a rare delicacy in Chau Doc.

Banh man de originates from Cambodia and is a specialty of Chau Doc, but it's not easy to find because few people make it and the ingredients are not readily available.

The main ingredient for making the cake is the flour of the common mần dè plant in Cambodia. This plant takes many years to grow before it yields flour, so bakers have to find a reliable source to import the flour. The flour is mixed to make the cake crust, which is translucent, crispy, and has a cool, refreshing taste. The filling is made from finely ground mung beans.

To enjoy this type of cake in Chau Doc, visitors can go to Ms. Mai Ngoc's cake stall on Nguyen Van Thoai Street, next to Chau Doc market. This is one of the few banh man de (a type of Vietnamese cake) stalls in the area.

Mần Dè cake, with its mung bean dough wrapper, offers a sweet and refreshing taste. Photo: Chau Doc Station.

Ms. Ngoc learned to make mung bean cakes from her mother and has been making and selling them for 20 years. She says that these cakes are hard to find nowadays because the preparation is quite elaborate and the ingredients are difficult to source. To make the filling, Ms. Ngoc washes the mung beans thoroughly, soaks them overnight, and steams them until soft. Then she grinds the beans finely with sugar and simmers them over a fire until they thicken into a soft, pliable mass that doesn't stick to your hands. The mung beans are then cooled and rolled into evenly sized balls.

The baker mixes the palm sugar with water, adding a little palm sugar to create a balanced sweetness. The mixture is then stirred well and cooked over low heat, stirring continuously until it becomes translucent. Ms. Ngoc says this step is crucial and requires experience, as the heat must be carefully controlled to prevent the mixture from clumping.

Ms. Mai Ngoc has been selling banh man de (a type of Vietnamese cake) for nearly 20 years near Chau Doc market. Photo: Chau Doc Station.

Once the filling and dough are prepared, the baker places a layer of dough in a bowl, adds the mung bean filling in the middle, and then covers it with another layer of dough. After a few hours, the cake will solidify and can be easily peeled out of the bowl.

Besides its aesthetic appeal, the finished cake must have a harmonious blend of the sweet and nutty flavor of mung bean paste and the crispy, chewy texture of the outer layer of dough. When you bite into the cake, the dough layer breaks apart, and the mung bean filling melts in your mouth, leaving a sweet, cool sensation.

Ms. Ngoc added that bakers can create many more colors such as green from pandan leaves, purple from perilla leaves, and blue from butterfly pea flowers. The cakes she sells are two colors, green from pandan leaves and yellow from palm sugar, because "I can't make them all by myself."

Banh man de is a familiar treat for the people of Chau Doc, enjoyed as a snack, dessert, or to offer guests. Not many vendors sell it, so Ms. Ngoc's food cart is well-known and sought after. Every day, Ms. Ngoc makes 100 cakes, all of which are sold out by morning. Each cake costs 5,000 VND.

Pork skin cake made from mung bean flour.

Visitors in Chau Doc stop by to buy cakes.

Mai Ngoc's wheelbarrow.

The green and yellow colors of the mần dè cake come from pandan leaves and palm sugar.

The cakes are neatly arranged on the tray, plump and uniformly colored, making them visually appealing. When selling, the owner generously pours coconut milk over the cakes and sprinkles them with fragrant roasted sesame seeds. "The cakes have a chewy texture like jelly, refreshing and cooling on hot days," said Mrs. Nam, a resident of Chau Doc City and one of Ms. Ngoc's regular customers.

Ms. Minh Hue, a tourist from Ho Chi Minh City, said she learned about the cake through social media and had the opportunity to see it firsthand when she visited Chau Doc. "The name of the cake made me very curious," she said, adding that she not only bought some to enjoy on the spot but also took some home as gifts.

Besides mần dè cake, Ms. Ngọc's cart also sells pork skin cake made from mần dè flour, which is also enjoyed by many tourists. In Chau Doc, tourists can also find many other popular Western Vietnamese cakes such as palm sugar rice cake, grilled sticky rice with banana, tapioca dumplings, and puffed rice paper, which they can enjoy on the spot or buy as souvenirs.

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/banh-man-de-dac-san-kho-tim-o-chau-doc-3310868.html