Another Trung Thu season is just around the corner, and bakeries across Vietnam are busy at work churning out thousands of mooncakes to be given out as gifts or relish at home with family and friends. One meticulous local baker, however, had a different idea.
Thùy Dương, a 29-year-old baking instructor living in Hanoi, practically became a mini celebrity overnight after she posted a set of photos detailing her latest mooncake project in a Facebook forum for cooking enthusiasts. Titled “Hồi ức” (Nostalgia), the project is a 30-kilogram diorama of a northern-style country house that’s made from mooncake entirely by hand.
Born and raised in rural Tuyên Quang, a peripheral province in northeastern Vietnam, Dương holds the visuals of her hometown close to her heart, especially local traditional homestead and its typical elements. “The roof, brick yard, moss-strewn walls, and the palm tree in front of the house — they’ve become memories that I won’t ever forget,” she writes in the post description. “No matter how difficult that past was, I still want to remember it, and I will use my efforts to preserve it.”
The project stands out thanks to its impressive realism.
“Hồi ức” is an impressive feat in many aspects of the craft. As every element is shaped and baked by hand, it took Dương and her team many days just to lay the bricks or cut out each leaf individually from wafer paper. She estimated that she made up to a thousand pieces of roof tiles for the rooms. Bigger components have a mung bean core, much that that of normal mooncakes, and are covered in dough and baked.
Apart from the structure, the project is also striking in its attention to detail. The diorama features tiny objects and even trees often spotted in traditional homes: a well at the back of the house for everyday water needs, a jackfruit tree provides shade and fruits, a banana tree with its crimson flower, various clay receptacle to store rainwater, salt, or pickled cabbage. Even the fallen leaves on the roof are included for a touch of reality.
Overall, Dương’s eye for texture gives the mooncake diorama a hyper-realistic quality that can pass for clay or sculpture. From the patches of moss that coat the roof tiles to the cracks on the clay pots, each detail is painted on using small brushes and food colorings.
Dương shared with local media that she graduated from university in 2017 with a degree in banking. After a few years working for a local bank, she quit her job in 2019 to pursue baking fulltime. Last year, she also finished a mooncake project producing pastries inspired by traditional motifs from Đông Hồ folk paintings, like a rooster, a dragon, and a carp.
[Photos courtesy of Thùy Dương via Dân Trí and Thanh Niên]
