Monday, August 25, 2014

Pandan Chiffon Cake & Pandan Sponge Cupcakes

Few weeks ago, mum chopped off her old pandan plant and we were left with a big bunch of pandan leaves. So I took some from her and made some pandan cakes.

Use about 15-20 pandan leaves (the more the better), wash and cut into small pieces for easier blending.


I use electric blender, blend the pandan leaves with about 300ml water. Although we do not need so much pandan juice, we need to add water to get the blender to work, if not the pandan leaves will get stuck without moving for my blender.

After done, filter and squeeze the mixture through a sieve to get the clear pandan juice. Discard the remains. Leave the pandan juice in the fridge overnight or few days even better. I forget to take a photo, but you will get a distinct 2 layers of juices, the top is a clear layer while the bottom is a denser green layer of pandan juice which we will use for the cakes. It's called the homemade pandan extract.


First and always, my favourite chiffon cake.


I use a recipe that is very popular on FB originated from Caryn Man Yoke Peng. There is some similarity between this and the Okashi's recipe, both yield very soft chiffon cakes!

Pandan Chiffon Cake (20cm chiffon tin)

Ingredients:

5 egg yolks
30g sugar
50g oil
70g homemade pandan extract
83g cake flour

5 egg whites
70g sugar

Method:

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until the sugar dissolves.
2. Gradually add in vegetable oil, followed by homemade pandan extract. Mix well.
3. Add sifted cake flour. Mix until just combined. Set aside.
4. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until foamy. Add in sugar gradually and continue whisking until stiff peak form.
5. Gently fold in the egg white into the egg yolk batter (in step 3) in 3 batches.
6. Pour the batter into an ungreased chiffon tin. Give the tin a few slight knocks on the tabletop to remove air bubbles. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 35 minutes. (If your oven is hot, try 160 deg C for 40 min or 150 deg C for 45 min)
7. Remove from oven and invert the tin immediately onto a cooling rack.
8. Unmould the cake only when it is completely cool.


See how I'm 'torturing' my chiffon cake. Hehe! It's super soft


Pandan sponge cupcakes made 100% extracted from pandan leaves and all natural colouring.


This cake uses beating the whole egg method which I actually don't like to make. Cos I always find it hard to fold in the flour nicely. However, this time I did it without much problems, maybe more experience now. The result is also moist and fluffy. A good alternative if I feel lazy to do egg separation method.


Pandan Sponge Cupcakes (about 10 cups)

Ingredients:

2 large cold eggs
50g sugar
pinch of salt
65g cake flour
25g homemade pandan extract
15g oil

Method:

1. Whisk eggs, sugar and salt at high speed until white and fluffy, about 15 minutes.
2. Fold in sifted cake flour gently until the mixture is smooth and no traces of flour.
3. Mix homemade pandan extract and oil well. Scoop some batter from step 2 into the pandan mixture. Mix well. Then pour the mixture back to the batter. Fold in gently till smooth and well combined.
4. Scoop the batter into paper cups until almost full.
5. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 20 minutes. (adjust time according to the size of the baking cups)

Recipe adapted from: Butter . Flour & Me