Last May, Hannah Pham hosted her mother and her mother’s three sisters in Los Angeles, where she was working with her husband, the comedian and actor Ronny Chieng. She baked them bánh bò nướng, the special occasion cake she loved growing up in Melbourne, Australia. The women, who were tasting Ms. Pham’s version for the first time, expressed their doubts about whether the cake would be any good. Even though Ms. Pham’s mother doesn’t make the cake herself, she had a “bánh bò lady” she called with orders.
After years of refining her recipe, Ms. Pham was confident enough in her cake to serve it to her elders. They were “so impressed,” she said, their skeptical clucking transformed to high praise, their expressions of happy surprise caught on camera. Ms. Pham first wanted to learn how to make this cake because she remembered the great ones neighborhood aunties made for community potlucks.
Known in English as honeycomb cake for its interior pattern of holes, stretched long like yawns, bánh bò nướng is tinted jade from pandan paste, which flavors the coconut milk batter. Glossy green pandan leaves, from which the paste is extracted, impart a scent that hovers like jasmine and vanilla with a grounding of soft herbs and toasted rice. The mix of tapioca starch and rice flour yields a texture that’s stretchy, sticky and soft.
