Beginner
Korean
Kimchi Jjigae (Kimchi Stew)
Source: Traditional
30 min3420 kcal
Dairy-free🌶️🌶️
Bánh Bò (Honeycomb Rice Cake)
A chewy, springy rice-flour cake that rises on yeast and coconut milk and cuts open to a honeycomb of vertical tunnels — 'bamboo roots', the Vietnamese call them. Steamed small and white in the north, baked large and golden with pandan in the south. Sweet, a little sour from the ferment, and not like any other cake.
Source
Recipe by Vietnamese home kitchens · 🏺 Traditional · Everyday Vietnamese home cooking, made the same way from Hanoi to Cà Mau
Vietnam · the cake with bamboo roots — An ownerless traditional sweet, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms bánh bò as a sweet, chewy Vietnamese sponge cake made from rice flour, water, sugar and yeast, with a honeycomb interior called rễ tre ('bamboo roots') from its many small air bubbles, and coconut milk usually in the batter. The tapioca, the hot-mould rule, the two cooking methods, timings and quantities are this book's own.
Watch it being made · 3 videos
⏱ 60 min🍽 12 servings🔥 170 kcal🇻🇳 Vietnam
VegetarianVeganDairy-freeGluten-free
Steps
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water with a teaspoon of the sugar. Leave 10 minutes until foamy.
Warm the coconut milk with the remaining sugar and salt until the sugar dissolves — warm, never hot, or the yeast dies. Whisk in the rice flour, tapioca starch, yeast water and pandan until smooth. It should be a thin, pourable batter.
Cover and leave in a warm place 2–3 hours until the surface is full of small bubbles and it smells faintly sour. Stir once gently to knock out the largest bubbles.
💡 The honeycomb comes from the ferment, not from baking powder. Skip the wait and you get a flat, dense disc. The sour smell is correct.
Steamed version: oil small cups or a tin, heat them empty in the steamer 3 minutes, then pour in the batter to three-quarters and steam over a hard boil 15 minutes with the lid wrapped in a cloth. Baked version: pour into a hot, oiled 20 cm tin and bake at 180 °C for 40 minutes until the top is golden.
💡 The moulds must be HOT when the batter goes in. Cold tins give no tunnels — the batter has to set on the sides while the bubbles rise through the middle.
Cool 10 minutes before turning out. Cut a piece open — the inside should be full of long vertical holes.
💡 Tips
- Southern bakers serve the baked cake with a drizzle of sweetened coconut cream and sesame. The steamed white ones are eaten as they are, often with chả lụa in a savoury pairing called bánh bò bánh tiêu.
- It stales fast. Eat the day it is made; re-steam leftovers 3 minutes to bring the chew back.
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