Existing for more than 40 years, the coconut cake is simple but has a strange charm that makes many patrons and first-timers also fall in love with this sweet taste.
Every morning, Uncle Phat’s coconut cake shop starts a busy day to sell to customers. Just the sweet aroma from the freshly baked crust and mixed fillings is enough to make many people queuing to buy “drool”. At first, his shop was just a small cart located deep in the alley of Nguyen Duy Street, District 8. Uncle Phat – a man who is nearly 60 years old is still passionate about his family’s heirloom cake.
Uncle Phat – coconut cake seller
Coconut cake is a traditional cake of the Chaozhou people. With two simple ingredients, the outer shell is baked and the inside is soaked with the filling from slug coconut, ca dé, or durian. Sometimes, the guests just like to eat the crust because the crust is also very flavorful.
Cakes with eye-catching colors
Having inherited the cake business from his brother-in-law, Uncle Phat now no longer has to work hard to bake cakes and then push his cart to the streets of District 5 to sell, but has rented a more spacious business place for himself. The reason for taking the name Tan Da coconut cake is because, in the past, he was attached to Tan Da street in District 5, selling this cake for many years, all the students at that time were addicted to his cake. Until now, when moving to many places, people still remember the name of Tan Da coconut cake, so he decided to take that name as his brand.
After moving many times, Uncle Phat also found a “parking station”.
Every day, Uncle Phat and his relatives get up early to prepare charcoal and baking powder for sale, all handmade. To make delicious coconut cakes, the stage of stirring the dough, frying the coconut, and making the filling is extremely important. After mixing, the dough must be beaten by hand for 20 minutes so that there are no lumps and the dough will be smoother to make quality cakes.
The crust is very soft
The second important stage is the baking technique, every time when baking, Uncle Phat must really concentrate when pouring each layer of cake to cover the pan. The griller must check the temperature, at the same time check the coal below to monitor the correct baking time. Each layer of cake only needs 1 to 2 minutes to bake, but if any step is wrong, the crust will be damaged.
Carefully spread the cake around
Check the firewood so that the oven is hot enough
In the past, Uncle Phat only sold two traditional fillings: coconut and sugar butter. But because the demand for enjoyment is increasing, the shop has “upgraded” to 8 different types of fillings such as ca dé, peanuts, durian. In addition, the crust is also made by Uncle Phat with pineapple leaf flavor, making the cake extremely eye-catching. However, according to the uncle, the old or regular customers will often prefer to eat the traditional yellow cake crust because of the more buttery smell of eggs, while the young people prefer the delicate and fleshy coconut leaf cake.
Traditional crust with eggs, butter, milk, flour
The new crust has more pandan flavor
During the processing stages, after the crust is finished baking, the staff will spread butter evenly on the inner shell of the cake, put in coconut jam to make the filling, turn the remaining crust on top and cut it into 4 to 6 parts as follows: Pizza for your convenience to take home or eat on the spot.
The cake was commented by the guests as not too sweet, because Uncle Phat said that although his cake is a traditional cake, it must also “race” according to the needs of the market. Because this cake used to be very sweet or it will have more green bean filling, but now few people buy green bean filling, so I don’t sell it anymore and the recipe also has to reduce the sweetness to better suit customers’ taste.
The staff is scanning the human ca dé inside the shell
Coconut cakes have prices ranging from 40,000 to 55,000 VND / loaf or half a loaf from only 25,000 to 30,000 VND, a fairly affordable price for such a large number of cakes, 3-4 people are still enough. Guests can also choose from the type of crust to the filling to their liking. This type of cake can be preserved for 8 to 10 hours, but the best taste is still when enjoying the hot cake that has just been baked.
The menu has many choices and the prices are very affordable
From early morning to about 6-7 pm the coconut cake shop, is crowded with customers coming in and out, and the staff is always making cakes on time. From time to time, there will be phone calls to order dozens of boxes of cakes for people to give guests or take away. Or there are also many guests who often come to buy two or more, eat it as soon as it’s hot, it’s delicious.
Cakes are prepared to be delivered to customers
With such a long life, this coconut cake shop has been the childhood of countless generations, no matter where Uncle Phat moves, he is still not afraid of being “stuck”. Because they have moved up to 3 times, but because they miss the taste of fatty coconut cake, the guests still come to the place to buy it.