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1/24/20 15 KitchenTigress: Pandan Chiffon Cake (I) http://kitchentigress.blogspot.com/2011/03/ pandanchiffoncake.html 1/ | Video Recipes | q| All Recipes | q| Profile & Email | q| Home | .. 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 i n c he s stinges on yolks, whites, sugar and oil. Out! Anna Chan's is an oilless recipe, and my experience w i t h E p i c u r a t i v e ' s o i l - l e s s c h i f f o n h a s n ' t b e e n g o o

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1/24/2015 KitchenTigress: Pandan Chiffon Cake (I)

http://kitchentigress.blogspot.com/2011/03/pandanchiffon-cake.html

1/8

| Video Recipes | q| All Recipes | q| Profile & Email | q| Home |..

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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S E A R C H T H I S B L O G

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1/24/2015 KitchenTigress: Pandan Chiffon Cake (I)

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3/8

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

Keirra Lynn

Could you enlighten...

Kueh Bangkit · 1 day

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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.

baked boiled poached simmered steamed braised stewed deepfried

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or almost no cooking panfried roasted stir fried

R E C I P E S B Y C O U R S E

breakfast cakescookies and

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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foods main course rice and noodles salads side dishes soups vegetarian

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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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