Every time the weather changes slightly from spring to summer, come to Cao Bang to enjoy the familiar yet strange specialty cake.

Ant egg cake (called peng ray in Tay language).

The best time for people to go into the forest to find ant eggs is late spring and early summer. Ant eggs used to make cakes are only from the small black ant with a pointed tail that usually nests on bamboo and sau sau trees.

Ant eggs in these nests are usually milky white, as big as rice grains, very plump, fatty and high in protein. The main ingredients to make delicious ant egg cake are sticky rice flour, ant eggs and young leaves of fig trees.

Ant egg cake flour is made from delicious sticky rice soaked with a small amount of regular rice for 6 - 8 hours. When the time is up, the rice will be drained, then ground into a fine powder, kneaded until the dough is smooth and shiny.

When the ant eggs are brought home, they are sifted to select those that do not meet the standards, then washed and drained. The filling is a combination of minced pork, fried with shallots, ant eggs, and spices. When stirring the filling, you must stir it evenly so that the filling does not burn, has a certain fluffiness, the spices are absorbed evenly, and the color of the filling will also be more beautiful.

When choosing leaves to make the cake, you must choose the type of leaves that are not too young or too old. The type with small leaves will be more fragrant and softer than the large ones. The cake is not too elaborate, the leaves will be placed at the bottom first, a thin layer of flour will be spread over the entire leaf, then the minced meat and ant egg filling, then another thin layer of flour and the top layer of leaves.

The point to note when wrapping the ant egg cake is to wrap it tightly, so that the leaves completely cover the cake and the filling inside, without any gaps. After wrapping, steam the cake for about 30 - 45 minutes until it is just cooked.

Mỗi độ tiết trời chuyển nhẹ từ xuân sang hạ, đến Cao Bằng thưởng thức ngay đặc sản bánh tưởng lạ hóa quen- Ảnh 1. — Ant egg cake is a unique dish of Cao Bang people.

To enjoy ant egg cake, people often divide it into beautiful square pieces, cut like that, under the layer of fig leaves, there is a layer of fragrant sticky rice flour and a layer of meat and ant eggs filling, which looks very attractive.

Take a bite and your taste buds will be surprised by the perfect combination of ingredients. The fragrant, rich flavor of fig leaves, sticky rice flour, and the rich, creamy smell of ant eggs. When eating, do not peel off the fig leaves, because fig leaves have their own unique flavor.

Ms. Dam Thi Thu Huong, a tourist from Hanoi, shared: I had the opportunity to travel to Cao Bang and enjoy ant egg cake. When I ate ant egg cake, I found it very delicious and was surprised because where I live, no one has ever used ant eggs to make cakes. In addition, I also had ant egg sticky rice, which was also very delicious. I was very impressed with Cao Bang's cuisine .