Pandan Chiffon Cake

Seems like a long long time since I left an entry. Work has been pretty overwhelming for the past 2 weeks. It's just painful coming home to stare into the comp after 10 - 12 hours of doing that in the office. I'm just glad the busy period's coming to an end.

Well, before work started getting crazy, I managed to bake Pandan Chiffon Cake, something I've wanted to do for a long time. Baking this brings back very fond memories of the days back in Perth. I remember Ling spending many nights and days in our small pantry experimenting, trying to perfect the recipe. It got so successful in the end that we even baked for our whole hostel during one of the International Weeks. It was just like home; soft and spongy but better yet, it was made with our bare hands. It was fun, the good 'ol days. Unfortunately though, we've both lost the recipe so I did some searching on my own. Found something that's quite good but would be even better with the tweaking of what I remember from our Perth days. I know it's much simpler to just go out to buy a cake but it's the process that matters. I hope you give this a try.














10 Egg Whites
1 tsp Cream of Tartar

170ml Coconut Cream
2 tbsp Pandan Juice
1/2 tsp Green Food Colouring

Yolk Mixture
8 Egg Yolks
240g Caster Sugar
170ml Corn Oil
1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Flour Mixture
140g Plain Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Fine Salt

Oven Temperature: 170 degrees celsius

• Beat the egg whites til frothy, sieve the cream of tartar into the egg whites. Continue beating til very stiff but not dry. Set aside after this is complete.
• Combine all the ingredients in the Yolk Mixture. Beat lightly til well blended.
• Sift the ingredients in the Flour Mixture and place in a mixing bowl.
• Make a well in the centre of the Flour Mixture and pour in the Yolk Mixture. Bring the flour in from the sides and beat til smooth.
• Add the pandan juice, green food colouring and coconut cream to the Flour/Yolk Mixture. Stir til well blended.
• Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites to the Flour/Yolk Mixture and blend well.
• Add the rest of the egg whites and fold in lightly with a rubber spatula til well blended.
• Pour into an ungreased 25cm x 10cm chiffon cake tin & bake for 45 - 50 min or until cake is well baked.
• Remove from oven when cake is baked, invert cake tin and leave for 1 1/2 hours before removing the cake from the tin.

Notes

You may wish to use fresh coconut for the coconut cream. You will need around 445g of grated coconut. Squeeze the coconut for 170ml 'first round' milk. Cook over low heat til it boils and thickens like cream. Stir all the time while cooking and allow to cool.

The original recipe only asked for 9 egg whites but I found that it wasn't spongy enough. I remember that Ling added extra egg whites in the past so I think 10 should do the trick.

Use the green food colouring with discretion. Original recipe asked for 1 tsp but I don't like my cake to be too green so I only used half the portion. I guess it will depend on whether you're using pandan essence or real pandan juice. Try to use pandan juice cos the aroma and taste will turn out different and real juice makes it better.

The original recipe can be found here.