An amateur confectioner from Vietnam has been getting a lot of attention
for her stunningly-realistic tangerine-shaped steamed buns.
Le Thuy, a secondary school teacher from Ho Chi Minh city, is well known
among the confectioner community of the Vietnamese capital, especially
for her jelly and bean cakes. However, she recently managed to surprise
her peers as well as thousands of social media users with her unique
buns designed to resemble real tangerines down to the tiniest details.
Her amazing creations look like fruits on the outside, but tear them
apart and a soft, spongy interior is revealed.
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The talented confectioner said that she came up with the idea of of
making the special buns after seeing a Singaporean demonstrate something
similar to promote her paid cooking course. However Le Thuy couldn’t
afford to take the course on her meager teacher salary, so she decided
to learn the process herself.
Le Thuy scoured Chinese, Taiwanese and Singaporean websites for recipes
of steamed buns, and even went on Chinese forums to ask for specific
information. She had to use Google Translate to decipher the recipes,
but eventually got everything she needed. Or so she thought…
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“I have made nearly 100 kinds of cakes so far, but I’ve never had as
many failed attempts as with these buns,” Le Thuy said. “I failed over
20 times, the buns came out wrinkled and deformed, so I threw them in
the trash and cried every time.”
After much trial and error, the talented confectioner found that the
three main secrets to getting perfect steamed buns are letting the dough
rise just enough, steaming them at just the right temperature and for a
precise period of time.
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But the most impressive thing about her steamed buns is the colorful
exterior, which matches that of tangerines down to the shiny essential
oils and the imperfections of the fruit peel. It’s so realistic that she
had to post a video peeling her dumplings just to convince the skeptics
accusing her of lying.
Following the success of her tangerine buns, Le Thuy revealed ones
shaped as dirty potatoes, which just as shockingly realistic. The
Vietnamese confectioner definitely has a knack for this sort of thing,
and it’ll be interesting to see what she comes up with next.
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