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1/24/2015 KitchenTigress: Pandan Chiffon Cake (I)
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R E C E N T P O S T S
Pandan Chiffon Cake (I)T H U R S D A Y , 2 4 M A R C H 2 0 1 1
I'm in the mood for a local cake, and no cake is more local than Pandan Chiffon. I start by
comparing recipes from Epicurative, The Best of Singapore Cooking, The Raffles Hotel Cookbook,
and the four featured by ieat. I put everything in Excel with the amount of flour in every recipe
standardized to
100 g, and all the other ingredients adjusted proportionately. (Yup, I'm a geek, and proud of it.)
Here's the spreadsheet (strictly for geeks like me):
Once I'm comparing apples and apples, it's obvious The Best of Singapore Cooking has heap loads
of everything, from coconut milk to oil, egg whites, egg yolks, and especially sugar and baking
powder. Every . . . single . . . thing! Hmm, doesn't seem right. BSC – out!
Epicurative and Raffles Hotel share practically the same oilless ingredients, but the mixing methods
are different. The "Grande Dame of Singapore" – or rather her servant, Ah Teng – whisks only the
egg whites, and all of the sugar bar 10 g is added to unwhisked yolks. I don't like the method
because whisked egg whites with only 10 g of sugar may be unstable, and unwhisked yolks doesn't
have much volume. Ah Teng – out!
I decide to try Epicurative's recipe, splitting the sugar between the whites and yolks, then whisking
each lot separately. I bake the cake for 40 minutes, which is plenty for a 21cm chiffon. The crust is
brown, but the inside is still wet whilst
the cooked part is dry. As the cake
cools down, it shrinks badly since it isn't
cooked through. There's probably too
much coconut milk in the recipe.
Epicurative – out!
So, I'm left with ieat's four recipes.
Hmm, Asianbakes seriously s t in c he s
stinges on yolks, whites, sugar and oil.
Out!
Anna Chan's is an oilless recipe, and
my experience with Epicurative's oilless
chiffon hasn't been good. Out!
Of the remaining two, ieat recommends the one "with more egg whites" from Kiamniangwong.
Actually, the recipe has less whites than Prima's, per 100 g of flour. But it has more in absolute
number because it's for a bigger cake. (See? A spreadsheet helps!)
I take the doctor's order since he has clinically tested his prescription. My verdict? I'm very
impressed by the cake's texture which is as soft as Bengawan Solo's. But the taste, using pandan
essence/paste, leaves much to be desired, not to mention the hideous colour.
In case you don't know, squeezing juice out of pandan leaves is like squeezing blood out of stone.
That's why most people use pandan essence, artificial green food colouring and, maybe to appease
their conscience, a token amount of real pandan juice.
To make a pandan cake without fake food colouring, I have to figure out something: how to squeeze
blood out of stone! Epicurative soaks finely ground s t one s leaves in water overnight, strains, then
lets the mixture settle, and
finally skims off the excess
water floating above the juice.
After trying her
1/24/2015 KitchenTigress: Pandan Chiffon Cake (I)
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1/24/2015 KitchenTigress: Pandan Chiffon Cake (I)
http://kitchentigress.blogspot.com/2011/03/pandanchiffon-cake.html
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method, my verdict is: there're far too
many steps, it takes way too long, and
it's difficult getting rid of the excess
water, so the juice is too diluted.
Epicurative's juice extraction method
isn't good, but the principle behind it is.
Why don't I mix the pandan with
coconut milk instead of water? Bingo!
The coconut milk turns from virginal
white to Martian green, and all I have to
do is get rid of the fibrous pulp with a
strainer. Two hours later, I'm
chomping on
pandan cake that's full of the aroma of real pandan. It's light as air, soft as cotton, and green as a
Martian – as good as Bengawan Solo's but baked by yours truly!
7 May 2012 Update:
Click here for more tips in baking the perfect pandan chiffon cake, and here's my stepbystep
video:
I could but I...
Kueh Bangkit · 1 day ago
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Could you enlighten...
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P O S T S B Y D A T E
PANDAN CHIFFON CAKE
Source: Adapted from Kiamnianwong's recipe
(Recipe for one 21 cm cake)
100 g pandan leaves, use only soft and moist young leaves
buy 250 g and use only 100 g of the innermost, light green leaves
70 g freshly squeezed coconut milk, undiluted
180 g egg whites
½ tsp cream of tartar
50 g sugar
60 g egg yolks
50 g sugar
60 g vegetable oil
¼ tsp salt
100 g cake flour, sifted with baking powder
1 tsp baking powder
Don't use old, dark green pandan leaves. Not only do these not have any
juice, they actually absorb liquid because they're very dry. If you blend old and young
leaves together, the juice of the young ones would be absorbed by the old leaves.
7 May 2012 Update: Click here for my stepbystep video and more tips on baking
the perfect pandan chiffon cake.
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R E C I P E S B Y C O O K I N G M E T H O D
1/24/2015 KitchenTigress: Pandan Chiffon Cake (I)
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Preheat oven to 180°C (355°F).
Wash and roughly chop
pandan leaves. Blend with coconut
milk and 1 tbsp water. Strain,
pressing leaves hard. Discard pulp.
Set aside green liquid, which should
weigh 95 g.
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Whisk egg whites with sugar and c
andiesdesserts dim sum
cream of tartar till just reaching stiff
peaks. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk egg
yolks and sugar till pale, thick and
creamy (ribbon stage). Add green
coconut milk,
then vegetable oil, whisking till evenly mixed. Gradually add flour mixture, along
with salt, again whisking till just evenly mixed. Add egg whites in 3 batches, whisking
gently by hand in
electric whisk's direction. Scrape down with spatula before mixing last batch of egg whites.
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Bang mixing bowl against worktop 23 times to remove air bubbles. Pour batter into 21
cm 2 piece chiffon tin that's not nonstick, slowly so that air bubbles still trapped in
the batter are released. Run a chopstick round side of tin to remove more air
bubbles. Level and smooth top.
Bake cake in bottom of oven till risen and almost level with top of tin, about 15
minutes. Cake should now be very slightly brown and not cracked. Place baking tray
in top of oven to block top heat. Continue baking till inserted skewer comes out clean,
20 minutes or so. Cake should now be slightly cracked. Remove tray from top of oven.
Continue baking till top of cake is dry and mediumbrown, another 510 minutes (7½
minutes for my oven).
Remove cake from oven. Invert onto a bottle. Leave till cool, an hour or so. Cut cake
out of tin.
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