Vietnamese Honeycomb Cake
It was indeed late at night when we were craving some cake and not just any cake. The other week we found a small mom and pop Indonesian/Dutch market where we found a box mix for the Indonesian version of the honeycomb cake. It’s actually lighter in texture than the Vietnamese version, but both versions are really good and not too sweet which means we can just keep eating and eating... and eating... in the wee hours of the morning.
After successfully trying out the box mix, we were determined to make our own Vietnamese-style honeycomb cake from scratch. It actually isn’t that hard to make but it does require you to be extra careful in order to get that nice honeycomb-like appearance when you cut open the cake.
Ingredients:
- 200 milliliters of coconut milk
- 1 cup of sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 2 cups of tapioca starch flour
- 6 eggs (you use the entire egg)
- 2 1/2 tsp of single acting baking powder
- 1/2 tsp of pandan oil
- 1/2 tsp alcohol free vanilla extract (optional)
This particular cake is tricky because you have to be extra careful when stirring because you DO NOT want any foam or bubbles. So when the recipe tells us to “stir,” we just gently move the whisk in a circle to homogenize everything.
1. Crack all eggs and whisk gently just to homogenize the whites and yolks. You do not want any bubbles.
2. Sift the tapioca starch flour with the single acting baking powder in a separate bowl.
3. In a saucepan, dissolve the sugar, coconut milk and pinch of salt over low heat. Once dissolved, remove from heat and let it cool until room temperature.
4. Once the coconut milk mixture is cool, add it to the eggs and stir gently. Again, no bubbles.
5. Add the tapioca starch flour to the mixture and stir gently.
6. Once homogenized, add the pandan oil and vanilla extract and stir very gently, ensuring that there is no foam and no bubbles.
7. We used a bread loaf pan to bake the cake in because the batter will be rather runny. We tried using the no-leak spring pan, but those didn’t work very well. The batter still seeped through. Anyway, butter only the bottom of the pan and then preheat oven with the buttered pan inside to 350F.
8. Once oven is heated, take the pan out and pour the mixture in. Then put back in the oven.
9. Bake for 45 minutes and do the toothpick test to ensure that the cake is done. The toothpick should come out clean.
10. Once done, remove the pan and then flip upside down over a cooling rack and let cool for 10 minutes before eating.
Ultimately the cake tasted really good! It was coconut-y and not too sweet. If you’re a little adventurous and want to try a different sort of cake outside of the traditional cakes we’re used to, try this honeycomb cake!
