The Most Ideal Pandan Chiffon Cake

It was one of my sweetest moments being eighteen... A young man came to my house knocking on our house door with a freshly baked pandan cake wrapped in brown paper.

"I bake this for you and your family." He said as he passed on the cake to me. I was extremely touched receiving this gift. Everyone was impressed with the cake. Despite that my dad is never a pandan cake fan, he had a slice too. I'm guessing that this might his gesture of approving my future dates with this fine man... LOL!

In Singapore, pandan chiffon cake is cheap, mostly commercially produced and commonly sold almost everywhere. However, it is a special cake for me because it was one of "sweetest" cake that I had :)

Unlike living in Singapore, living in Melbourne now means that we can't buy a good pandan chiffon cake at anywhere or anytime that we want and the only way to enjoy a good pandan chiffon cake means that I will have to know how to bake one.

Fortunately, I know one recipe that can bake a really good and in fact the most ideal pandan chiffon cake! It originates from a popular Singapore food blogger, Leslie Tay at ieatishootipost.sg. In this post, Leslie has thoroughly defined the meaning of a good pandan chiffon cake and had made more than 30 attempts to archive THIS which is said to be his most ideal pandan chiffon cake recipe. Knowing these facts and being me, how would I miss out baking this?

In order to archive the full aroma of pandan in my chiffon cake, I have chosen to use the real pandan instead of using pandan paste or essence. Pandan is cheap and abundant in most southeast Asian countries. It is free if you grow it yourself and can even grow extremely well in pots. Sad to say that fresh pandan leaves are expensive and rare in Melbourne, Australia. Finding and growing a pandan plant in Melbourne backyards is almost impossible. Most Asian groceries sell frozen pandan and rarely some will sell 5-6 (or even less) leaves for about A$2. For my chiffon cake, I have used 25 fresh pandan leaves for my extraction using the method by Wendy from Table for 2. Wendy's method processes pandan and water to extract pandan juice and leave it overnight to concentrate it further. I think that this method has worked very well for me but my husband thinks that I wasn't making full use of the 25 pandan leaves. He reckons that I shouldn't discard the non-sinking but fragrant clear liquid and said the most effective way of extracting pandan is to use coconut milk to extract the pandan juice itself and this will minimise the water content in our future pandan cakes. Ok ok... I will try his method, maybe next time.

This pandan cake is truly as good what we expected. Very soft and smooth spongy texture and everyone love it! I'm very happy baking this beautiful cake. I was enjoying my great memories too as I was eating slices of this soft and aromatic cake. At this point, I'm guessing that you might be guessing right the identity of this fine young man...

Most ideal pandan chiffon cake? Truly as ideal as we are expecting...

Fresh pandan leaves in all different forms... LOL!

Concentrating pandan juice...

Making the pandan chiffon cake batter

The aroma of pandan baking is simply irresistible!

I'm very happy seeing this!

Even happier admiring this...

Happiest when I'm enjoying this!

Update on 25 May 2016:

Here is a video of me baking this pandan chiffon cake recipe again. Instead of using 25 pandan leaves and water to extract the pandan juice, I have used 15 pandan leaves and coconut milk to extract the pandan juice and top the pandan-coconut-milk with more coconut milk to 165ml in total and it worked well too! Enjoy the video...

Here are the recipes that I have adapted:

Making concentrated pandan juice from Table for 2

• Using a kitchen scissor, snip 10-13 fresh pandan leaves into small pieces.
• Place them into a blender with 1/4-1/3 cup of water and process.
• Place blitzed pandan over a cheesecloth or anything similar and squeeze out the pandan juice.
• If you need to use more than 10-13 pandan leaves, repeat the blending and squeeze process again to get more batches of juice.
  Leave pandan juices in the fridge overnight.
• The juice will separate into two distinct layers. Remove the top clear liquid layer and use the deep green colour sediment as concentrated pandan extract.
  Note: Do not freeze the extract as it will lose its fragrance after freezing and thawing

Pandan Chiffon Cake from ieatishootipost.sg
 
Ingredient group A
6 egg yolks
(from small 60g eggs)
100g caster sugar
115ml canola oil
200g cake flour
(with 8% protein)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
pandan juice concentrate from 25 pandan leaves plus coconut milk to a total volume for 165 ml
(I used the Ayam brand light coconut milk with 13% fat)
 
Ingredient group B
9 egg whites
 (from small 60g eggs)
100g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 170°C or 150°C fan forced

Whisk egg yolks and sugar until light-coloured. Add oil, coconut milk and pandan concentrate and whisk to combine. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt over the mixture and mix well until smooth. Set aside.

Beat egg whites with wire whisk attachment at an initial low speed until foamy. Increase beating speed at this stage and beat while adding sugar tablespoon by tablespoon and beat until stiff peaks form.

Add in 1/4 of the egg whites mixture into the egg yolk mixture and mix gently to incorporate. Then, fold in the rest of the egg whites mixture into egg yolk mixture, gently and by batches. Mix well to incorporate but also do not over-mix.

Pour batter into 25cm un-greased chiffon tube pan. Smoothen the surface of the batter and tap the filled pan on your kitchen top to even the batter and also eliminate large bubbles.

Bake at 170°C or 150°C fan forced for 60 mins or until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Remove cake from oven, invert it upside-down immediately to prevent the cake from sinking. When the cake is cooled completely, remove it from tube pan by sliding a knife along the sides, and bottom.

Cut with a serrated knife and serve.

Happy Baking
Please support me and like me at Facebook...