An amateur confectioner from Vietnam has been getting a lot of attention for her stunningly-realistic tangerine-shaped steamed buns.

Le Thuy, a secondary school teacher from Ho Chi Minh city, is well known among the confectioner community of the Vietnamese capital, especially for her jelly and bean cakes. However, she recently managed to surprise her peers as well as thousands of social media users with her unique buns designed to resemble real tangerines down to the tiniest details. Her amazing creations look like fruits on the outside, but tear them apart and a soft, spongy interior is revealed.

The talented confectioner said that she came up with the idea of of making the special buns after seeing a Singaporean demonstrate something similar to promote her paid cooking course. However Le Thuy couldn’t afford to take the course on her meager teacher salary, so she decided to learn the process herself.

Le Thuy scoured Chinese, Taiwanese and Singaporean websites for recipes of steamed buns, and even went on Chinese forums to ask for specific information. She had to use Google Translate to decipher the recipes, but eventually got everything she needed. Or so she thought…

“I have made nearly 100 kinds of cakes so far, but I’ve never had as many failed attempts as with these buns,” Le Thuy said. “I failed over 20 times, the buns came out wrinkled and deformed, so I threw them in the trash and cried every time.”

After much trial and error, the talented confectioner found that the three main secrets to getting perfect steamed buns are letting the dough rise just enough, steaming them at just the right temperature and for a precise period of time.

But the most impressive thing about her steamed buns is the colorful exterior, which matches that of tangerines down to the shiny essential oils and the imperfections of the fruit peel. It’s so realistic that she had to post a video peeling her dumplings just to convince the skeptics accusing her of lying.

 

Following the success of her tangerine buns, Le Thuy revealed ones shaped as dirty potatoes, which just as shockingly realistic. The Vietnamese confectioner definitely has a knack for this sort of thing, and it’ll be interesting to see what she comes up with next.