Sweets and drinksChilled DessertsVietnam15 minutes to cook the syrup, 30 minutes to rest the dough
Banh deo needs no oven, since the syrup and the cooked glutinous rice flour do all the work. The skin is ivory white, soft and smooth, scented with pomelo flower, and the mung bean filling is cool and tender.
The hardest part is judging the flour: too much and the skin turns hard, too little and the cake slumps and loses the pattern from the mold. Syrup cooked a few days ahead gives a noticeably softer, smoother skin. The filling is ready when you can roll it into a ball without it sticking to your hands.
This batch weighs about 1.6kg, at roughly 254 calories per 100g.
Method
Make the syrup: bring 300ml water to a boil and stir in 270g kOBE Monk Fruit Blend until dissolved. Once it boils, lower the heat, add 5ml lime juice and simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, strain and cool.
Cook the filling: rinse 200g split mung beans, soak until swollen, then cook until soft with 72g kOBE Monk Fruit Blend and 200ml water. Blend the cooked beans smooth and pass them through a sieve.
Put the beans in a pan, add half the coconut oil, about 40ml, and stir constantly over low heat, then add the rest to reach 70 to 80ml.
When the paste thickens, mix 10g cornstarch with 70ml water and pour it in slowly, stirring until the filling is dry, pliable and no longer sticking to the pan.
Make the skin: stir together 400ml kOBE Monk Fruit Blend syrup for snow skin, 70ml cooking oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 5ml pomelo flower extract.
Add 210g cooked glutinous rice flour in a slow stream, stirring quickly until smooth.
Dust your hands with a little flour, knead the dough until soft and smooth, then cover and rest for 30 minutes.
Divide the dough and the filling into equal portions. Roll the skin thin, place the filling in the middle, seal and shape into a ball.
Set the ball in a mold brushed with a thin film of oil or flour, press gently so the dough fills the pattern, then push the cake out.
Tips
The syrup improves with age, so cooking it a few days ahead gives a softer, smoother skin.
Do not stir the syrup while it cooks, or it will crystallize.
Hold back about 20g of the cooked glutinous rice flour and add it during kneading if the dough still sticks.
Dust the mold very lightly, because a heavy coat leaves the surface cloudy and the pattern blurred.
These are at their best after 1 day, once the skin has softened and taken on the pomelo flower scent.
kOBE Monk Fruit Blend dissolves slowly, so give the syrup its full 15 minutes and check that no grains remain.
Need kOBE Monk Fruit Blend?
The recipe above is sweetened with kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, measured 1:1 like sugar. See the product page or send us a message.