Recipe

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Pandan Chiffon Cake
  • This recipe was entered in the contest for The Best Recipe or Technique Your Mother Taught You
  • Chef

    ying's Notes: I admit: pandan leaves and/or pandan flavouring are hard to come by. But this cake is beautifully fragrant and such a quirky example of East-meets-West cuisine: a rich, airy chiffon cake flavoured...

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Serves 1 cake

  1. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and baking powder three times. In a smaller bowl, mix together egg yolks, oil, salt, coconut milk, and pandan juices or essence.

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  2. In a third bowl, beat egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar until the whites are glossy and hold stiff peaks.

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  3. Make a well in the flour mixture, add the yolk mixture, and stir gently to combine. If you're using the food colouring, add it here - just enough to evoke a delicate spring green, not a St Patrick's Day beer. Fold in the egg whites.

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  4. Scrape batter into an ungreased tube pan (providing it doesn't smell of monkeymom's roast chicken!) and bake for 30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

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  5. Invert onto a long-necked bottle and cool completely. This cake is normally served unadorned.

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5 Comments on Pandan Chiffon Cake

Reply

I bought frozen pandam leaves a few weeks ago and started out simple by adding about 3 long leaves to 1 C of rice I was cooking. The smell of the leaves out of the package was wonderful--a little bit like cooked rice. But not much of any taste was imparted to the rice. Did I not add enough? Something wrong with my leaves? Any ideas?
Thanks for your help. I've been learning a little bit about Filipino recipes recently.

Ap5 Reply

Hi lripley! It may be your leaves - the quality of frozen ones varies a lot, and 3 leaves to 1 cup of rice sounds like a lot to me. But pandan, like vanilla, adds more fragrance than taste. You can amplify it by bruising the leaves before using them, and cooking your rice with a little salt and coconut milk to make the flavour blossom. Hth!

Ap5 Reply

Argh - I forgot to mention that if your coconut milk is at all lumpy, pass it through a fine sieve. Otherwise, you'll have tiny lumps in your finished cake - not a total loss, but annoying all the same.

Monkeys Reply

Sounds great! (better wash that pan out real good!) I'll be on the look out for the pandan - is it usually found fresh?

Ap5 Reply

Hee! I love your roast chicken, but worried the first time I made it that I'd ruin my pandan cake pan. So far, it's all good. ;) I've never seen fresh pandan in North America but you can buy the leaves frozen at good Asian markets.

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