Pandan chiffon cake (Christine's)

This is a pandan chiffon cake that is not meant to be.....but don't get me wrong, it still turned out good!

I had previously bought a bunch of pandan leaves for kueh making but didn't get to use it. Not wanting to waste it and because there's some left-over coconut milk, I decided the best way is to bake a pandan chiffon cake. Onwards searching for good pandan chiffon cake recipes and found many available such as Jane's, Christine's, Happy Flour's, etc. But seeing that Happy Flour uses a rather different technique -汤面- I decided to use hers. However, when I was preparing the ingredients for the cake, I somehow clicked on Christine's recipe instead. These days, I baked without printed recipe; I would put my iphone beside me and constantly refer to the recipe from the small screen. Thereafter, I had problem sequencing what I should do? I used to utilise both my KA mixer and handheld mixer whenever the recipe calls for egg white meringue. As my handheld mixer has broken down months ago, I thought I could just use another bowl and KA mixer to beat the egg white. But all the bowls I used didn't fit. Ended up changing 4 bowls and only got it right on the 5th try and it's back to using the KA bowl. Got to wash and dry the bowl spotlessly knowing how sensitive the egg white can be. Trouble didn't end here, instead of Cream of tartar, I added baking powder to the egg white and had to scoop them out carefully. After losing so much egg white, beat another egg white to make up for it but it seems to be too much! My soul must have left my body whilst I'm baking this cake. I felt kinda lost & drained after that! What else can happen on a Thursday night baking!

Pandan Chiffon Cake(Recipe adapted from Christine's Recipes)
Ingredients/ Method:
Batter:
5 egg yolks
20 gm caster sugar
100 gm cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
100 ml coconut milk
2 Tbsp pandan juice (see below for making pandan juice)
a few drops pandan essence/pandan paste, optional
3 Tbsp olive oil

Egg whites:5 egg whites
60 gm caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 170C. (Note: I would turn up to 175 the next time cos the cake didn't brown that much.)
2. Beat the egg yolks with a balloon whisk and mix in 20 grams of sugar. Add coconut milk, pandan juice, and a few drops of pandan paste (if desired). Combine well.
3. Sift in cake flour and baking powder in three batches into the egg yolk mixture. Mix well. Lastly, add olive oil. Set aside.
4. Use a large clean bowl, making sure there’s no water or oil in it. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until bubbles form. Add the cream of tartar. After mixing well, add the 60 grams of sugar in three batches, about one-third at a time, and beat well between additions. Continue to beat until stiff peaks form.
5. Spoon out 1/3 of the beaten egg whites and fold into the egg mixture. Lightly fold in the rest of the beaten egg whites with a spatula, until just combined.
6. Pour into the cake pan and bake in preheated oven for about 35 to 40 minutes.
7. Remove cake from the oven. invert the pan immediately. Allow it to cool completely.

To make pandan juice:
10 pandan leaves
1 1/2 Tbsp water

1. Chop pandan leaves into chunks, pop in a food processor and add about 1 1/2 tablespoons of water. Process to small pieces.
2. Place pandan leaves in a muslin bag and squeeze out the juice. You need about 2 tablespoons of it to make this cake. If you don’t have a muslin bag, just use your clean hand to squeeze out the juice.




As bad as my baking experience, I could only take one not-so-decent picture of the chiffon cake on a Friday morning before rushing to work. Pardon me ;)