The scent of Tet cakes...

Rice cakes on the offering tray at the altar.

A traditional Vietnamese rice cake, made from glutinous rice, sugar, and ginger, wrapped in banana leaves – a symbol of a joyful and harmonious Tet celebration.

Foreign tourists are excited by the unique shape of the rice cake at Hoi An market.

"The cake, with its earthy color and poured into a thick, square mold, reminds us of the belief in 'round sky and square earth' in the thinking of ancient Vietnamese people," wrote cultural researcher Luu Duy Tran.

Filter the brown sugar water.

During the December market days, the air is filled with the fragrant aroma of sticky rice from the source to the end of the river. Mr. Le Phuoc Chin (born in 1952, Phuoc My area, Ai Nghia town, Dai Loc district) said that for each Tet holiday, he uses 5-7 tons of sticky rice just to make banh to (traditional Vietnamese rice cakes). The ovens burn brightly day and night...

Mix the glutinous rice flour, water, and sugar together with the grated ginger.

The cake has a brown color from the brown sugar, a mild ginger flavor, and the aroma of cooked glutinous rice mixed with white sesame seeds. Quang Nam's traditional rice cake is famous in the Dai Loc region. Mr. Chin said: "The main secret is to cook it many times until you get used to it, adjusting the sugar and glutinous rice flour so that the cake is neither too soft nor too hard. For a good cake, you need sunny weather to dry it and prevent mold."

The mixture, once blended, is poured into banana leaf molds, ready to be steamed.

The best steamed rice cake is one that is "voluntarily puffed up" when first steamed, then becomes concave and pitted after cooling. Connoisseurs will choose cakes like that.

Make a mold for making rice cake using banana leaves.

During Tet (Vietnamese New Year), as long as you still see traditional rice cakes, the flavor of the past remains...

After being steamed, the rice cake is sprinkled with sesame seeds and then left to dry in the sun.

Mr. and Mrs. Le Phuoc Chin stand beside their freshly baked rice cakes.

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/huong-tu-banh-tet-3148058.html