In Vietnam we usually call those beautiful pattern in pastry, like marble, “sơn thuỷ” – it means mountains and waters. I’m not sure whether the word “sơn thuỷ” comes from our famous myth or not (*), but their beauty is always an endless inspiration from generations to generations in the arts. We have quite many pastry creations with these beautiful patterns, always in three specific colors – white (coconut flavor), brown (coffee flavor) and green (pandan leaf flavor). I love these patterns because it’s like a surprise to us as we have no idea how does it look until we slice the cake. I love a nice surprise!
I keep trying to create these patterns during my baking, especially with pound cake or sandwich loaf. I should try with jelly cake which is very nice due to the water texture. Anyway today I’m sharing the recipe of the “mountain-river-pattern” pound cake, not only of the very good taste but also the beauty of the patterns!
Step 1 Preparation for dry ingredients
- All purpose or cake flour 390 gr
- Baking powder 7 gr
- Baking soda 2 gr
- Salt 10 -12 gr.
Step 2 Preparation for another ingredients
- Butter 300 gr
- Powder sugar 200 gr – 220 gr ( I go for a bit sweeter due to cacao powder in the cake)
- Egg 6 pcs
- Milk for green tea mixture 40 ml. (I do replace with whipping cream)
- Green tea 20 gr.
- Milk for cacao powder mixture 40 ml.
- Cacao powder 30-40 gr.
- Vanilla extract 8-10 ml.
Another day I created the same pattern for milk sandwich, it’s quite interesting! I could do it again and again as I love it, to me it looks like the painting!
(*) the Mountain God vs. Lord of the Waters in our famous myth, explains the practice of the tidal irrigation and devastating floods in Vietnam as a result of monsoon.
Le petit renard 