The Baker | Khanh Dang
It is a late Monday morning as Khanh Dang doing some of the final steps before delivery. It is raining in Danang, not a strange thing during this time of the year. He carefully takes small pieces of gold leaf and puts it on each of the cake sitting on the cooling rack. Each of his cakes is a piece of art and he is the artist perfecting it.
The KK by Khanh Dang is operated as an online bakery with two different divisions: normal projects with high-quality version of popular desserts, and limited-time pop-up projects with luscious cakes designed by Khanh himself. He usually posts the sketch of each of the pop-ups on the bakery’s social media for attraction.
Khanh has just finished his Diploma in Hotel and Resort Management there. He opened the KK by Khanh Dang after coming back to Vietnam from Australia. Through it, he wants to further develop his passion for baking, which he did not have a chance until recently.
His father is headmaster of a trade school. When the school started offering baking courses, his father offered him a chance to participate in it. Since then, Khanh’s passion for cake has bloomed.
Khanh bakes all of his cakes in his father’s trade school baking room when there is no class. Thus, time management is key for him. Khanh remembers the first cake he made in here, which is from that course: “It was a Swiss Roll. It was not easy as a first cake. I learned how to do batch mix doing it.”
Most of these pop-up cakes are inspired by flavours that is domestic to Vietnam. So far he has done three pop-ups: “The Strawberry”, “The Coffee Kk” and “The Kkumquat”. Khanh lighted up as he remembered: “ I was quite surprised by the positive feedback and the attention I had from the first pop-up, ‘The Strawberry’. It motivates me to continue.”
As he puts the cakes in their boxes, Khanh mentions: “I am not an academic person. That’s why I stopped after getting the Associate Degree, not continuing for the Bachelor’s.” After the cakes are all packed, he carefully ties a name card of The KK by Khanh Dang to each of the boxes.
One of the biggest challenges Khanh has to face when started is his lack of professional training in culinary. It made designing and writing the recipe much harder. He says: “It is amazing being able to open this bakery. However, it stresses me out a lot to be the owner for the first time, doing everything from baking to managing the orders and shipping. However, with the support I have from my friends and family, I managed to go through it.”
As the bakery operates online and accepts pre-order only, it makes everything more controllable for Khanh, especially when there was a 90-day social distancing period in his city due to a COVID-19 outbreak, or when five hurricanes struck the region in a month, which happened just some days ago. The only problem he had to face is having to throw out all the ingredients after that.
“The KK by Khanh Dang just had its first steps in this world”, Khanh said as he hopes that the KK can become a famous dessert bar in Danang. He shares: “I want to bring out unique dessert flavors using some signature flavors from Vietnam as well as South East Asia. But it is quite a far future. For now, I want to prepare myself first by attending a culinary school next year in Australia.”
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Van Vo is a sophomore studying Journalism and Mass Communication in AUBG. She is a cake fanatic trying to find some new unique flavors.
