Steamed layer cake - Bánh da lợn | Helen's Recipes

Hi everyone, today let's make the steamed layer tapioca cake. It's a very beautiful dessert and very delicious at the same time. In Vietnamese, it's called Bánh Gia Lợn which literally means pigskin cake. Making this cake is not that difficult so let's start. The ingredients you will need are 200 gram of tapioca starch, 50 gram rice flour, 250 gram sugar, 1 can of coconut milk and 200 gram of cooked mung beans. To cook the mung beans, I wash 100 gram of the peeled mung beans until the water becomes clear and then soak them in water for an hour. After that, I add in water and cook in the rice cooker. The water level should be just as high as the beans. If you don't have a rice cooker, after soaking the beans for one hour, you can steam them for 15 minutes or until they are soft. Next, we dissolve 250 gram of sugar in 1 can of coconut milk and 300 ml water. You can stir on low heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. After that, let cool to room temperature. Next, we mix the tapioca starch with the rice flour and the coconut mixture. Stir really well until you get a very smooth batter. You can strain the mixture to make sure that there's no lump inside. And don't forget to add in a pinch of salt. Next, we divide the batter into two portions, one a little more than the other. The smaller portion should be around one and a half cup. Next, we add some pandan extract to the bigger portion. This will make the green part of the cake. The pandan extract also gives the cake a very nice pandan flavor. For the yellow layer, we're gonna blend the cooked mung beans with the smaller portion of the batter. Then blend it really well until smooth. Next, we grease the pan with some vegetable oil and boil the water in the steamer. If you don't have a steamer, you can do like me. Okay, so when the water in the steamer starts to boil, we add in two ladles of the green layer. Cover the lid and steam for about three to four minutes. To avoid the water dripping into the cake, you can wrap the lid with the kitchen towel like this. When the green layer is slightly set, we're gonna add in two ladles of the yellow batter. Make sure the lower layer is slightly set before we add in a new layer because we don't want them to mix up. But we also don't want them to be too separated so steam each layer just a few minutes only and not too long. Okay, so just continue until you finish the batter. You can make this cake in a pan or in small molds like this. After the last layer, steam the whole cake for another 15 minutes. When you poke the center of the cake with a chopstick and you see no batter spilling out, it's done. For example here, the heart-shaped one should be steamed a little longer and this small one is done already. Make sure you let the cake cool completely before you unmold and cut them. Look how beautiful these cakes are. It's already very delicious but I still want to make it more perfect. I want it to be a little softer and has the natural fresh pandan flavor. So I bought a bunch of fresh pandan leaves and chopped up about six of them. After that, I blend it with 100 ml water in a food processor. Then I strain it and get 100 ml pandan water. The color is very natural, very green and very fragrant. Then I add to the bigger portion of the batter instead of the pandan extract so we get a very natural green color, very beautiful and fragrant. And I also strain it to make sure the batter is completely smooth. So these are the batter. It's a little more liquidy than the previous time but I want the cake softer so it's gonna be good. So I steam the batter layer by layer like the previous time and this is what I get. The cake is set. But still soft which is much more to my liking. Of course, I have let it cool completely and now I'm gonna cut it. To have a smooth cut, I grease the knife with some vegetable oil. Normally, they cut into diamond shape but you can just cut into whatever shape that you like. You can serve this cake within a day or you can keep it in the fridge for two to three days. If you eat on the next day, you can microwave for about 30 seconds to 45 seconds and then let it cool and it's good to eat again. The layers are even, the cake is soft and glutinous and it has great flavor of pandan and mung bean. It's a perfect cake to serve in the afternoon with a cup of hot tea. So I hope you enjoy making and eating this cake as much as I did. Thank you for watching. Bye-bye.