Ultra Soft Pandan Chiffon Cake (with Milk and NO coconut milk)

If you are a chiffon cake enthusiast like me, I hope that you will like my milky soft chiffon cake recipe at here. It is such an awesome recipe producing a basic vanilla chiffon cake that is so soft, tender and moist!!!

Hence, I know some of you might ask...

Can you modify this recipe into other versions of chiffon cake?

My answer is YES!!!

Some of the readers might be surprised with my positive answer as I had been saying NO to all readers who have asked if they can modify my other ultra soft chiffon cake recipes at here (banana chiffon cake), here (honey chiffon cake), here (cranberry yogurt chiffon cake) and here (cocoa chocolate chiffon cake) into the ultra soft chiffon cakes that they want. YES that I won't say NO this time... LOL!

Unlike my other ultra soft chiffon cake recipes, my basic milk chiffon cake recipe at here is versatile and can be easily modified into pandan, coffee or any milk-flavoured chiffon cakes. All you have to do is to substitute the plain milk with any flavoured milk like chocolate milk, strawberry milk, coffee with milk, etc etc etc and ... Voilà!!!

This is one of my ultra soft pandan chiffon cake that is made with fresh pandan that is extracted with milk. Told you... It works!!! And it is so perfect-liciously soft and fragrant!!!

Ultra Soft Pandan Chiffon Cake made with pandan extracted with milk

My son and I love love love pandan chiffon cakes and this is why I'm always looking for recipes that can bake super duper extremely SOFT pandan chiffon cakes!!! Am I exaggerating or expecting too much? I guess that it is an obsession of a crazy baking woman that you can never understand. LOL!

Super duper extremely SOFT pandan chiffon cakes??? Ideally, I want a pandan chiffon cake that is 1) light and soft like the heavenly light and ultra soft pandan chiffon cake that I baked at here, 2) moist like the cooked dough pandan chiffon cake that I baked at here 3) fight-able with the ideal pandan chiffon cake that I baked at here. In other words, I'm looking for all pandan chiffon cakes that will "wow" me.

To do that, I had tried going all out to bake a pandan chiffon cake with more egg whites, more pandan extract, less yolks and less flour. And guess what? The cake collapsed!!!

Am I disappointed? NO! ... because I learned!

As I was removing the structurally unstable cake from the cake pan, my son was lured by the fragrance of the cake and asked for a pinch. Since the cake has collapsed, I said "Why not?" And within minutes, 50% of the failed cake was gone! It was so soft, light and delicious!!!

"Mum, bake this again!"

Yes. I will and I know what to do next. As I was optimizing both pandan and milk chiffon cake recipes concurrently, I had this idea of incorporating pandan into my previous milk chiffon cake recipe at here. And guess what? It works beautifully!!!

ultra soft milk chiffon cake + pandan = ultra soft pandan chiffon cake!
Does this equation make sense to you?

Absolutely YES to me!

Can I consider this pandan-milk chiffon cake to be one of super duper extreme SOFT pandan chiffon cakes?

YES because 1) it is light and soft 2) moist even on its 4th day of bake 3) definitely as good as the ideal pandan chiffon cake that I baked at here or even better! It is yummy!!!

Any baking tips? Yes and they are the same as the ones that I mentioned at my previous milk chiffon cake post at here.

Update on 5/10/2017: It's ok to have some cracks on this cake!!! Please do not bake this cake with too low oven temperature or a tray of boiling water. Detailed explanation is at here.

Just before proceeding to the video and recipe, I have one important thing to mention... If you are modifying this or the ultra soft milk chiffon cake recipe into coffee or any milk-flavoured chiffon cakes by replacing the plain milk with any flavoured milk like chocolate milk, strawberry milk or coffee with milk that has added sugar, it is best NOT to reduce the amount of sugar required to beat the egg white mixture. If you still insist to do so, please be aware that 100g caster sugar is the minimal amount to beat a decent meringue that is smooth and stable. Less than 100g sugar added will make the meringue more brittle and less stable causing the cake not to hold this optimised amount of moisture very well.

Now, here's the video showing how I baked this awesome cake.

Like this ultra soft chiffon cake and want more? I will have many newly-derived ultra soft chiffon cake recipes to share in the near future and so please stay tune! To get the latest updates, you can follow me at either my Facebook at here or here or my Instagram @zoebakeforhappykids

Here's the recipe.

IMPORTANT: Please use the exact weight and make sure that all ingredients are at room temperature.

Makes one tall and perfect 8-inch (20 cm) chiffon cake

For the egg yolks mixture:
9 fresh pandan leaves
about 100g milk, plus more if required
100g egg yolk (about 6)
50g neutral tasting vegetable oil
120g cake flour with 8% protein
1/4 tsp salt

For the egg white mixture:
210g egg whites (about 6)
100g caster sugar

Preheat oven to 160°C/320ºF.

For the egg yolks mixture:

Using a kitchen scissor, snip pandan leaves into small pieces and place them into a blender or a processor container with 100g milk and process. Place blitzed pandan over a muslin cloth and squeeze out the pandan-milk juice. Use only 100g of the juice. Top the mixture with extra milk to 100g if the extracted juice is less than 100g.

Using a hand whisk, whisk egg yolks and oil in a large mixing bowl until slightly pale. Then, whisk in pandan-milk juice until well combined. Sift in flour and salt and whisk gently until the batter is smooth and combined. Set aside.

For the egg white mixture:

Using an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, beat egg whites in the lowest speed for at least 10 mins to stabilise the mixture. Increase beating speed to the next higher speed. While beating, add sugar gradually. Increase beating speed to another higher speed and continue to beat until stiff peaks form. The meringue should be very smooth with tiny bubbles. Do not over-beat the mixture.

Using a hand whisk or a spatula, gently fold in the egg whites to the egg yolks mixture in 3-4 batches. It is ok to mix the 1st batch of egg white more vigorously into the egg yolk mixture but the subsequent portions must be folded in very gently. Make sure that most of the white is not visible after folding.

Pour batter into an un-greased 20 cm chiffon tube pan. Give the pan a gentle tap and use a skewer to draw zigzag on the batter surface to remove any large bubbles. Bake at 160°C for for 55 mins or until it is thoroughly baked. If the top of your cake is turning golden brown too quickly, you can cover the cake top very loosely with a foil at the last 15 mins of bake. IMPORTANT: This cake has to be baked for at least 50 mins in total.

After baking, drop the cake from a 20-30 cm height immediately onto your tabletop to minimise shrinkage. Then, invert the cake immediately to cool on a wire rack. Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan before removing it from the pan. Important: Do not unmould the cake by pressing it! To unmould, please use a blunt thin plastic spatula or knife to run along the cake's edges and gently push the cake out from the pan.The cake is fragile and so it is easier to slice with a serrated knife. Enjoy!

Store any uneaten in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days

Happy Baking

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