Delicious Bac Son donuts

Visiting places selling different types of breakfast, district markets or small fairs in Bac Son district, visitors will see delicious donuts with eye-catching golden brown colors. These are also traditional cakes, which have existed for a long time and been very famous in Bac Son district.

In the early days of July 2023, we had the opportunity to go to Bac Son town and enjoy delicious donuts. Currently, in the town, there are about 20 households making donuts as business.

To better understand how to make this cake, we visited the family of Ms. La Thi Chuyen, Hoang Van Thu area, Bac Son town. This is also a well-known local donut-making family for many years. While busy preparing ingredients for a new batch of donuts, Ms. Chuyen shared: “Donuts are a traditional, long-standing and very famous cake of Bac Son district. In 2009, when I got married and moved to Bac Son town, my mother-in-law taught me how to make cakes and we started to do a business. Currently, on average, my family sells 500 to 600 cakes per day, with the selling price of 2,500 VND/cakes. With such a large number of cakes, my family only sells it in the morning and mainly sells to the retailers.”

Ms. La Thi Chuyen, Hoang Van Thu area, Bac Son town has the donuts panela-coated

Although there are not too many ingredients, it takes a lot of time to make the cakes. It is made from glutinous rice, green beans and panela. These are all very familiar ingredients, but through the skillful hands of the makers with their own recipes, they have created donuts with a very specific flavor.

Accordingly, in order to create fragrant, flexible donuts, the choice of rice is very important. The rice must be yellow-flowered sticky rice in Bac Son district. Rice grains must be large, round with bright color. Before processing, glutinous rice is soaked in water for 4 to 5 hours. The rice is then ground into a powder and mixed with water into a dough. Next, the maker uses a canvas bag to hold the dough and hangs it high to drain the dough. Usually, it takes about 10 hours to drain the dough and to make it dry powder, easy for kneading and shaping the cake. Although it takes a lot of time and effort, this handmade way helps the cake keep the characteristic flavor of sticky rice.

Final donuts with eye-catching golden brown color

For the filling, people often use green beans that have been cleaned, soaked i for about 1 hour before cooking. Different from the way of making other cakes such as banh rom, banh gai, etc., the filling of Bac Son donuts does not need any spices but cooked green beans. According to the longtime donut makers in Bac Son district, this method not only helps to keep the cool taste of green beans but also helps the filling to not be mushy.

After completing all the steps, the baker shapes the dough as a shell and put the green bean paste in the middle and round it up. Next, the cake is put into a hot oil pan to be fried for the first time until the cake floats. After that, the maker continues to fry the cake the second time until it becomes evenly golden, crispy, and sticky inside.

When the cake is cooked, it is taken out and wait for it to become dry, the maker continues to dip the cake into panela. This is also the stage that makes the most obvious difference of Bac Son donuts compared to those in other localities. Because the sweetness of Bac Son donuts is not from sugar but panela (a type of sugar pulled from molasses and made entirely by traditional manual methods). Afterwards, the baker put a sufficient amount of water in the pan, boil it before adding panela. Then, the maker continues to simmer until the panela melts, mixes with water, forms a dark brown liquid and dips the donuts directly into the pan, take out and let it dry.

The final doughnuts with a golden brown crust, soft and fragrant inside, the aroma of green beans, and the sweetness of panela have received a lot of love from customers inside and outside the district. Ms. Hoang Thanh Dieu, Vinh Trai ward, Lang Son city said: “I have tried donuts from many districts such as Binh Gia, Huu Lung… but Bac Son donuts are the ones with the most special flavor. I found that although it is covered with panela, but it is still crunchy, the sweetness is not too harsh and the flavor of each ingredient remains. Therefore, every time I have the opportunity to come to Bac Son, I buy it for my family as a gift.”

Without expensive and complicated ingredients, Bac Son donuts have successfully conquered the taste of customers with the most rustic flavor. And perhaps, it is the passionate, country-soul taste that leaves an unforgettable impression and turned donuts into an ordinary gift to visitors of the revolutionary homeland Bac Son.