Sunday, November 30, 2008

Another attempt... Pandan Chiffon Cake


Since i baked my first pandan chiffon cake 2 weeks ago, i've been thinking of baking it again as i wanted to better it. Initially i had wanted to use the same recipe, but after flipping through my old recipe file, i found another pandan chiffon cake recipe, which i gamely decided to try.

Many years ago, when i was still in my teens, i used to cut out recipes from magazines, or copy them from recipe book, and some of the recipes were typed out and have some cute pictures accompanying them. When i see these 'art works', i couldn't help but think why i did such childish things in the past, but nevertheless, it did put a smile on me and brought back sweet memories. Counting back, the recipe file should be at least 15 years old!

The last pandan chiffon cake i baked was lacking in pandan flavour and pale in colour. I'm almost inclined to use artificial colouring and flavour, but decided not to since my little baby will be eating it. In most of my bakes, i always try to stay away from artificial addictives, if possible. So instead of what the original requires, i use about 13 pandan leaves to obtain the extracts. Actually this is the balance leaves left from my previous bake.

The cake did turn out more flavourful and the green colour is more distinct. But i'm not very satisfied with the texture, but i guess it's possibly due to my folding of egg whites, which I'm still unable to totally grasp and maintain a constant standard.



Ingredients/ Method:
100g top flour
1 tsp baking powder
100ml coconut milk
Pandan leaves (at least 10)
4 egg yolks
3 tbsp corn oil
5 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
100g caster sugar
Pinch of salt

1) Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2) Blend coconut milk together with pandan leaves. Squeeze and extract the juice. Set aside.
3) Whisk egg yolks and sugar. Add (2), oil and salt and whisk well. Add in sifted flour.
4) In a clean bowl, whisk egg white and cream of tartar until frothy. Slowly add in sugar until egg whites are stiff.
5) Take 1/3 of egg whites and add into (3), and mix well.
6) Fold in remaining egg whites with (5).
7) Pour into ungreased tube pan. Bake at 180 deg C for 45-50 mins or until skewer comes out clean.
8) Invert pan and let the cake cool before removing from pan.

The next time i bake this again, there are a few things i will modify - 1)reduce the sugar to 75g, 2) lower temp to 170 deg C, 3) pay 101% concentration when folding the mixture!



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This is what i did with my remaining batter that didn't fit into my 1 and only tube pan... and i prefer the texture and taste of chiffon cake in muffin cup, actually.





I brought the chiffon cake along when we went out for our breakfast on Sunday, and with a cup of nice aroma black coffee, it tasted perfect ;-p




When i ate the cake on Morning morning, it is still very soft and somehow the pandan and coconut flavour is more intense than on Saturday. The cake still keep well after 3 days...kekeke

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