Bánh Tổ Revisited

With Tết just around the corner, it's time to fire up the stove and start pumping out sweet munchies!  Bánh Tổ is a must have for Tết.  There's no better time then now to fine tune your banana leaf mold making skills.  The recipe for Bánh Tổ can be found here.  Instead of steaming the cakes in rice bowls, the batter is steamed in banana leaf molds.  Don't have time?  The molds can be make in advance and stored in the fridge.  Ready? Set? Let's do this!

Step 1: wash the leaves and dry them with a towel, cut the leaves into approx. 1 foot wide pieces

Step 2: Stack 2 pieces of leaves so that they crisscross like so...

Step 3: Place a bowl/container (I used a plastic togo container) in the middle of the leaves, fold up the top and bottom sides of the leaves towards the container.

Step 4: Fold up the right side like so, then fold in the two corners.

Step 5: Use a toothpick to pin the 2 corners together.  Now repeat step 4 on the left side.

 

Step 6: You're almost done!  All that's left now is to 

trim the rim of your newly created mold with sissors.

That's it! Now all that's left is to fill them and steam...don't forget to stamp your cakes with red coloring (of course...) for luck!  Don't own a stamp? Go buy one :D....or.....cutout a few images from a lucky red envelope (bao lì xì) and use those! 

Have Fun and Happy Tết Everyone!