Hanoi Woman Recreates Traditional Tet Feast Entirely from Sweets

Images of northern specialties such as fried spring rolls, pickled shallots, and pork skin soup — all sculpted from sponge cake and sugar — have amazed viewers for their lifelike appearance.

On January 2, Thuỳ Dương, 30, from Thanh Xuân District, Hanoi, shared photos of her Tet feast titled “Old Flavors” on social media. Every item on the table — from bowls, plates, and chopsticks to six traditional Tet dishes — was made entirely from sponge cake, sugar, and chocolate, leaving everyone astonished. Her post garnered over 7,000 likes and thousands of comments praising her creativity.

“If she didn’t say they were made from cake, I’d have sworn it was real food. I kept looking and couldn’t find a difference,” one user, Minh Hạnh, wrote.

The Tet feast includes six traditional dishes, along with all the bowls, plates, and chopsticks — each shaped from cake and sugar.

From banker to baker

Five years ago, Dương first attempted to recreate a Tet feast from cake after leaving her banking job to pursue baking. However, she had to stop halfway due to lack of experience and unsatisfactory results.

By late 2024, she decided to try again — crafting a New Year’s Eve feast featuring bánh chưng (sticky rice cake), fried spring rolls, jellied pork, pork skin soup, pickled onions, fried pork, and giò lụa (Vietnamese pork sausage).

“As Tet approached, I wanted to use my baking skills to recreate the old family feast — something to help those living far from home relive their childhood memories,” Dương shared.

A bowl of pork skin soup, recreated from sugar candy, features intricate patterns modeled after vintage porcelain designs.

Meticulous craftsmanship

To make the feast look as realistic as possible, Dương and her eight collaborators spent several days studying the textures and structures of each dish — from the shape of chopsticks and soup spoons to the patterns of early-2000s ceramic tableware.

For the fried spring rolls, she shaped tiny pieces of candy into minced meat, mushrooms, and shredded carrots before wrapping them in thin rice paper to mimic the puffy, crispy texture. To make the bánh chưng appear slightly flattened and sticky, as if it had been boiled for over ten hours, her team molded thousands of sugar beads to resemble sticky rice grains.

For the jellied pork and pork skin soup, Dương used gelatin, a common baking ingredient, to create transparency so that vegetables and meat beneath were visible — just like in the real dish.

Even the utensils — porcelain bowls, wooden chopsticks, and spoons — were carefully researched. Dương asked her parents in the countryside to help her find similar vintage items to replicate. After shaping them from sugar paste, she hand-painted floral motifs and even added chips and cracks to mimic old tableware.

9. "Eating a Bi