Pandan Chiffon Cake

I love the pandan cakes that you can buy from chinese supermarkets or bakeries. Pandan is of Malaysian origin and comes in the form of a leaf. The cake is made from the juice of pandan leaves, and so the colour of the cake appears light green.

I attempted to make this once before and failed considerable. The cake just sunk as soon as it came out the oven and so was not light and fluffy. My sister found a recipe on the internet and asked if I could make it for her. I was dubious but thought I'd give it a try anyway. U can find the recipe below, taken from http://nyonyafood.rasamalaysia.com/

Pandan Chiffon Cake Recipe

Ingredients

Step 1:

8 medium egg yolks
2oz  fine sugar
2oz Pandan /Screwpine Leaves Juice ( Made from blending 6 Screwpine leaves with 2 – 3 oz water)
3oz corn oil or olive oil
5oz self raising flour

Method:

1. Beat egg yolk and sugar lightly with a hand whisk till sugar dissolve.
2. Stir  in pandan juice and corn oil.
3. Fold self raising flour into egg mixture.
4. Set aside.

Step 2:

Ingredients:

8 egg whites
5 oz fine sugar
pinch of salt

Method:

1. Beat egg whites till frothy. Slowly add in sugar and pinch of salt while beating at high speed.
2. Beat until the egg white is stiff and shining but not dry. ( About 3 minutes)

Step 3:

1. Preheat oven at 175 degrees Celsius.
2. Use a spatula and gently fold egg yolk mixture into the egg white mixture(meringue).
3. Pour into an ungreased 25cm tube pan.
4. Bake for 40-45 minutes.
5. Once cake is cooked, remove cake from oven immediately and invert  pan onto wire rack. Let it cool before removing cake from pan.

I couldn't get hold of any leaves for this recipe so I used pandan food flavouring instead, you can buy this from chinese supermarkets. This seemed to work, although next time I might put a little more in the mixture. I was really careful of how much flavouring to put in, as the pandan flavouring tastes bitter and really strong. The last thing I wanted was to put too much in and have a bitter cake.

The cake was a success this time, although there are still areas to improve on. It was light, moist and fluffy with little sunkage... though the overall appearance of the cake could be better. But I was happy that it tasted good and had some good feedback from my sister and other guinea pigs I have!