Love & bear swissrolls & pandan chiffon cake

This is part II of the September school holiday post. See how the kids were having fun with baking, and I had as much fun guiding the little chefs! It was a very productive day, the kids made a Lots-of-love swissroll (recipe here) for my aunt's house-warming, and another pandan chiffon cake (recipe here) to bring home for daddy & mommy!

With leftover cream and ingredients, I made another long-ear bear swissroll (recipe here) in the night! 

Pandan rice flour chiffon cake (Recommended)

Within a week, I've baked two pandan chiffon cake. One was a 6' size and I was so happy that for the first time, I've got nice brown skin all over and the chiffon cake texture remains soft and moist!

In order to test out the recipe again on a bigger chiffon tin - 23 cm, and viola, I still get the same nice brown skin and very moist and spongy chiffon cake! I was over the moon as after trying out so many pandan chiffon cake recipes, this recipe has yield the best result for me!

Now it seems that getting the right oven settings (fan-oven) and temperature (150 deg C), and of course a good recipe, is key for me in getting the perfect pandan chiffon cake!

Pandan rice flour chiffon cake 

(A) 6' chiffon tin
Ingredients/ Method: 
2 egg yolk
15ml pandan juice (see below)
35ml coconut milk
25ml canola oil or coconut oil 
a pinch of salt
30g cake flour, sifted, 
15g rice flour, sifted

Egg whites:
2 egg white 
37g caster sugar
1/2 tsp corn flour 

Baking time/ oven temperature: 30mins/ 150 deg C fan-oven 

(B) 23cm chiffon tin 
5 egg yolk
30ml pandan juice (see below) 
70ml coconut milk
50ml canola oil or coconut oil 
1/8 tsp salt
60g cake flour, sifted, 
30g rice flour, sifted

Egg whites:
5 egg white 
75g caster sugar
1 tsp corn flour 

Baking time/ oven temperature: 45mins/ 150 deg C fan-oven 

1. Boil pandan juice, coconut milk, oil and salt in a small pot over low fire, till few bubbles start to appear on the surface. Set aside to cool. 
2. Using hand-mixer or whisk, slowly add in pandan coconut milk mixture to egg yolk and mix well.
3. Add in flour and whisk till smooth batter and set aside. 
4. Mix sugar and corn flour, set aside. 
5. Use a cake mixer, whisk egg white till foamy and add in sugar/corn flour gradually. 
6. Whisk egg white till stiff peak. 
7. Turn cake mixer to low (KA 2) and slowly pour in egg yolk mixture to egg white. Continue whisking till well combined. 
8. Pour batter into a 23cm tube pan, smooth the surface. Bang the tube pan on the table top for a few times. 
9. Place pan into a preheated 150 deg C fan-oven and bake for 30 mins (6' chiffon tin) or 45 mins (23cm chiffon tin). 
10. Remove from oven, invert cake onto table top.
11. Leave it cool completely before removing from tin. 

Pandan juice
25 blades of pandan leaves (wash & cut into smaller pieces)
1/2 cup of water

1. Blend pandan leaves with water. Squeeze out the liquid from the puree using muslin cloth. 
2. Pour pandan juice into a bottle, cover and chill in fridge overnight for the reside to settle down. 
3. Discard the clear liquid, use the residue left at the bottom of the liquid. 

The concentrated part of pandan juice give a very nice green colour and fragrant to the cake, and you will be happy to know that there's no unnecessary chemical/ additives to your home-made cake!

Gula melaka & pandan huat kueh

Gula melaka huat kueh
(Recipe adapted from Guai Shu Shu, yields 24 minis kuehs)

250g self raising flour
150g gula melaka, chopped coarsely
1 tsp baking powder
200ml coconut milk
50g plain water
2 tbsp oil

1. Prepare steamer. 
2. Boil coconut milk, water and gula melaka in a pot on medium-low heat. Stir until all gula melaka dissolved. 
3. Sift in the flour and baking powder to the coconut milk/gula melaka mixture. Add in oil and stir till well combined. 
4. Pour batter to lined mini cups up to 95% full.
5. Steam in steamer for 15 mins on high heat.

Pandan huat kueh
(Recipe adapted from Guai Shu Shu, yields 24 mini kuehs)

250g self raising flour
150g castor sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
50g melted butter
6 pieces of pandan leaves
200g plain water (I used my pandan juice made earlier and mix with water to get 200g pandan water)

1. Prepare steamer. 
2. Blend pandan leave with water. Sieve the pandan juice to a pot and add in sugar. 
3. Boil the pandan juice until all sugar dissolved. (Do not need to reach boiling point)
4. In a separate bowl, add eggs to (cool) melted butter and stir lightly till combined. Set aside. 
5. In another big mixing bowl, sift the flour and baking powder. Make a well in the centre and add in pandan juice, followed by egg/ butter mixture. 
6. Use a hand mixer and whisk till combined.
7. Pour batter to lined mini cups up to 95% full.
8. Steam in steamer for 15 mins on high heat. 

I love how the pictures look like they had a colour-change!

Pandan rice flour mini sponge cake

With some left-over pandan coconut milk from the earlier baking of chiffon cake, I wanted to bake something simple and easy. These will be for our tea-time and tomorrow's breakfast.

 Pandan rice flour mini sponge cake
Ingredients/ Method

3 eggs
75g sugar
65g cake flour, sifted
35g rice flour, sifted
40ml Pandan coconut milk
20g corn oil
1/8 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 170 deg C.
2. Boil pandan coconut milk, oil and salt in a small pot over low fire, till few bubbles start to appear on the surface. Set aside to cool. 
3. In a cake mixer, beat eggs and sugar until pale and thick.
4. Add in flour and mix till combined, either using mixer on low speed or using spatula. Do not over mix. 
5. Add in pandan coconut milk into batter and mix well. Do not over mix. 
6. Using ice-cream scoop, fill up lined mini cupcake holders with batter upto 90%. 
7. Bake for 15 mins at 170 deg C. Remove and let cool on wire rack. 

I did some doodlings using 2 tbsp of batter and 1 tsp of cocoa powder, mix well. I used the cake tester to draw on the mini sponge cakes. These are specially reserved for my lil boy! 

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (August 2014 Event: Flour) - organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe.

Pandan rice flour chiffon cake

After seeing Bakericious using rice flour for her orange chiffon cake, I was hyped to try out using rice flour for, what else, but pandan chiffon cake! I modified the recipe using my previous water roux pandan chiffon cake. I'm not too sure whether is it the addition of rice flour, but the chiffon cake turns out very moist and fluffy. The pandan and coconut flavours are very distinct too! This would be perfect with nice brown skin all over.

Pandan rice flour chiffon cake 

Ingredients/ Method: 
5 egg yolk
100ml pandan coconut milk (see below) 
50ml coconut oil 
1/8 tsp salt
60g cake flour sifted
30g rice flour, sifted 

Egg whites:
5 egg white
75g caster sugar
1 tsp corn flour 

1. Preheat oven to 175C.
2. Boil pandan coconut milk, oil and salt in a small pot over low fire, till few bubbles start to appear on the surface. Set aside to cool. 
3. Slowly add in pandan coconut milk mixture to egg yolk and mix well.
4. Add in flour and whisk till smooth batter and set aside. 
5. Use a cake mixer, whisk egg white till foamy and add in sugar gradually. Add in corn flour. 
6. Whisk egg white till stiff peak. 
7. Turn cake mixer to low (KA 2) and slowly pour in egg yolk mixture to egg white. Continue whisking till well combined. 
8. Pour batter into a 23cm tube pan, smooth the surface. Bang the tube pan on the table top for a few times. 
9. Place pan into a preheated oven and bake for 30 mins. Bake another 5-10 mins on fan-oven 150 deg C. (I baked at 5 mins only and the skin is not brown enough.) 
10. Remove from oven, invert cake onto table top and leave it cool.

To make pandan coconut milk: 
70ml coconut milk
10-12 blades of pandan leaves
30ml water  

1. Blend 10-12 blades of pandan leaves with coconut milk and water, till puree.
2. Squeeze out the liquid using muslin cloth. 
3. Ready to use. If not used immediately, pour the pandan coconut milk into a bottle and chill in fridge. 

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (August 2014 Event: Flour) - organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe.

Crispy pandan waffles

I've been trying out a couple of waffles recipes but sadly each one came out quite bland on its own. I remembered that when I worked at the confectionary during my school holidays in my teens, it was just measure-all-ingredients-and-mix batter, and it would turn out very fragrant and nice crisp. Alas I didn't keep the recipe nor remember them at all... sigh. I'm quite happy with this recipe as it gives out a nice pandan coconut taste!

Crispy pandan waffles
(makes 8 waffles)

1 egg, separated
1 cup coconut milk
1/6 cup coconut oil
1/4 tsp pandan paste
1/4 tsp buttermilk flavour
3/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp sugar

1. Boil coconut milk, coconut oil, pandan paste, buttermilk flavour and salt in a small pot. Ready when small bubbles form. Set aside to cool. 
2. Lightly whisk plain flour, corn flour and baking powder in a small bowl. Set aside. 
3. Whisk egg white until foamy and add in sugar, continue whisking until stiff peak. 
4. Add coconut milk mixture to egg yolk and mix well.
5. Add flour into the coconut mixture and stir.
6. Fold in 1/3 egg white to the coconut/flour mixture. Fold another 1/3 egg white to the mixture. Add the remaining egg white to the mixture, and be careful not to deflate them. 
7. Pour the batter onto the pre-heated & pre-oiled waffle maker.

P.s. Waffles can be made in advance and toast for a couple of minutes before serving.

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (August 2014 Event: Flour) - organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe.

Re-visiting (water roux/ 汤面) Pandan chiffon cake

I seems to be hooked to baking chiffon cake these days, and has been looking at too many pandan chiffon cake. I saw the  汤面 method so frequently on fb and had a go at it. 1st try wasn't really a success, there were lumps of 'pandan bits' after baking and the texture was dense. Was going through my earlier pandan chiffon cake bakes and realised I did one similar method before, totally forgotten about it! Revisiting the recipe and yield more satisfactory result! Ingredients are almost the same, just a little difference in the method and it's more manageable for me. Yum yum! 

Pandan chiffon cake

Not another boring pandan chiffon post again?! Throughout my short baking/blogging stinct, THE pandan chiffon cake has been my most "adventurous" where I tried more than couple of different recipes. Isn't it ironic for a so-called common cake? The recipe I'm trying today is one which I've bookmarked for a long time, which originated from ieatishootipost which is a very detailed post/recipe, but Jane had kindly posted a modified and easy-to-read recipe. I'm typing out the recipe for my future reference.



This is the first time I get a nice brown skin for my pandan chiffon cake, and I think it's probably due to the fan oven used. However, I felt the skin is slighly tough and cake is drier. Perhaps I didn't understand my oven since this is my first time using the fan oven, I'll play with lower temperature and/or shorter baking time to see how the chiffon cake will turn out the next time.

Pandan Chiffon Cake
(Adapted from Jane which was modified from ieatishootipost)
(Yields a 23" chiffon)

Ingredients/ Method:
(A) 4 egg yolks
55g castor sugar (reduced to 45g)

(B) 77g corn oil
94g coconut milk
1 1/3tbsp pandan juice (replaced with 1/4tsp pandan paste; would increase slightly to have more prominent pandan taste)
1 tsp vanilla extract

(C) 133g Top flour (or cake flour)
1 1/3tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

(D) 6 egg whites
68g castor sugar
3/4tsp cream of tartar

1. Cream (A) until light and fluffy using a hand whisk or electric mixer.
2. Add (B) gradually and mix well.
3. Sift (C) into the mixture and mix well. Set aside.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk egg white till frothy and slowly add in sugar and cream of tartar until soft peak.
5. Scoop 1/3rd of the egg white into the egg yolk batter and fold to ensure that they are mixed thoroughly.
6. Pour the mixture back to the egg white and fold gently and swiftly. I realised that folding by hand is much easier and effective than using spatula.
7. Before pouring the batter into the tube pan, give the batter a few knocks on the table to get rid of air bubbles.
8. Pour the batter into the tube pan slowly and in one direction. Do not grease the pan.
9. Bake in pre-heated fan oven at 160 deg C for 50 mins. (I will try to reduce the temp to 150 deg C for 45 mins)
10. When done, remove the tube pan from the oven and invert on a cooling rack and leave to stand for 2 hours.

Pandan chiffon cake (water roux/ 汤面)

Still feeling unsettled for not trying out Happy Flour's recipe, I baked another pandan chiffon cake yesterday ..haha... 2 pandan chiffon cakes, 2 different recipes, in 2 days. Anyway, it feels like a proper closure.

The recipe is pretty easy to handle but my batter was quite watery and not as 'gluey' as Happy Flour's. In terms of pandan flavour, it's not prominent enough, so I would probably add a few drops of pandan paste the next time. Texture wise is fluffy & spongy except for some spots which I didn't do a good job in mixing the batter evenly. Also I did not manage to achieve the nice brown skin like Happy Flour... will continue to try! Regardless, it still a good recipe.



Pandan chiffon cake (water roux/ 汤面)
(Recipe adapted from Happy Flour)

Ingredients/ Method:
Batter:
5 egg yolk
70g coconut milk (I diluted with 50% water as I don't like the strong taste of coconut milk)
30g pandan juice (see below for making pandan juice)
50g unsalted butter
1/4tsp salt (I reduced to 1/8 tsp)
90g cake flour (sifted)

Egg whites:
5 egg white
1/3 tsp cream of tartar
85g caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 175C.
2. Mix egg yolks and pandan juice together, set aside.
3. Pour coconut milk, salt and butter in a sauce pan, boil over low fire till butter melted about 60-65C (when few bubbles started to appear on the surface).
4. Remove from fire, add in flour and stir till it form a soft dough.
5. Slowly add in egg yolks mixture, whisk till smooth batter and set aside.
6. Use a cake mixer, whisk egg whites and cream of tartar till frothy.
7. Gradually add in sugar and whisk till stiff peaks form.
8. Fold in 1/4 of the meringue into the egg yolk batter until combined. (By now, the egg yolk batter should be lukewarm.)
9. Then fold in the rest of the meringue in two portions until well combined.
10.Pour batter into a 23cm tube pan, smooth the surface.
11.Place pan into a preheated oven and bake for 40-45mins.
12.Remove from oven, invert cake onto table top and leave it cool.

To make pandan juice:
1. Blend 10-12 blades of pandan leaves with 100ml of water, squeeze out the liquid from the puree.
2. Pour the pandan juice into a bottle, cover and chill in the fridge overnight for the residue to settle down.
3. Discard the clear liquid, use the residue left at the bottom of the liquid. This concentrate part of pandan juice give cakes a nice and light fragrant of pandan leaf.

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 ;)

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!

*******************************************

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

Pandan Chiffon Cake

These days i can't really live to the name of my blog; sometimes it made me depressed, other times it made me angry. Not because i start hating baking, or writing a blog entry. It's really personal, and i'm hesitating to pen it down here, in my little diary. I believe that emotions affect the things we do, and when people eat your bakes, they get the 'bad vibes' too! Even the photos turn out ugly. What should i do next?

Anyway, i did a Pandan Chiffon Cake using Rei's and baked some lao po bings (for the 3rd time) during the weekends. In terms of texture and making it look like a chiffon cake, i'm almost there. But i need to work very hard on getting the right flavour, mine tasted just a hint of pandan and coconut, you would probably be able to tell from the colour of the cake. I will attempt to do a better one, hopefully soon. Here's how my pandan chiffon cake looked like:-

My 17cm chiffon tin is too small for the entire batter, so

i pour the balance batter into a 7" cake tin. They looked

fine and pretty when just of the oven.

Thank goodness, the cake didn't collapse. It still hold
the shape and height. Colour and smell is lacking, though.

What happened?! Both are baked at the same time, using
the same batter! Could it be due to the cake tin used?
Texture is very dense. A classic failed chiffon cake.

I like this picture best! It shows the softness and fluffiness. See the nice hole-y holes.