Pandan Chiffon Cake

 Pandan Chiffon Cake is my favourite cake out of all cakes!  It's light and fluffy texture, the colour and the taste always want me going back to eat more of these!   Pandan Chiffon Cake is very popular in Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.  My mum used to buy me a piece of pandan cake at the local Asian market every morning.  It was a treat for me a long with sticky rice and sweet fried breads.

Pandan chiffon cake originates from Malaysia (everything so good originates from Malaysia :P) and is sometimes flavoured from the juice of the pandan leaf and sometimes added with green food colouring to make the colour for vibrant.  I think more these days when pandan leaves are not available the pandan paste or essence is substituted.   That is what I have used in this recipe.

This is my THIRD attempt making pandan chiffon cake.  And this third time I haven't really failed lol.   The cake turned out okay (it broke) but since I don't have chiffon tin (or angel cake tin) so it was hard to take it out.  I have a tin that has a hole in the middle.  I have no idea what to call it but it is not a chiffon tin.  It turned out nice and fluffy!

 folding the mixes together

The first 2 attempts both cakes rised up beautifully in the oven but when it was time to take it out and invert it..............it DEFLATED terribly!  It was so disappointing.   I think it was because when I folded the egg white mix into the egg yolk mix it lost air so that could be the problem.  Or maybe I had specks on yolk in the egg whites which ruined the whole recipe altogether!

 Broke on the side but hey still turned out great!

Here is the recipe.  I used a tin with a hole in the middle but really I should be using the CHIFFON TIN

Pandan Chiffon Cake

• 100G of plain flour sifted
• 1 TSP of baking powder
• 90ML of coconut cream (don't shake use bottom milk part of coconut tin (scoop out with spoon))
• 1/2 TSP of vanilla essence
• 4 egg yolks
• 5 egg whites
• 1 TSP of pandan essence 
• 70g of caster sugar (35g for egg yolk mixture / 35 g for egg white mixture)
• 1/2 TSP cream of tartar
• 2 TBS of vegetable oil 
• pinch of salt

METHOD

1. Pre heat oven at 175C
2. In a big bowl cream yolks, 35g of sugar, and vanilla til nice and thick
3. Add the flour, baking powder, coconut, oil and pandan.  Beat til smooth
4. In another CLEAN BOWL (has to be dry and not even damp) beat egg whites (with no spec of egg yolk), 35g of sugar and cream of tartar and pinch of salt.  Beat until STIFF PEAKS form.  Over beating is better than under beating the egg white mixture. 
5. Now carefully and gradually, 1/3 at a time ...fold in the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture and fold til combined.  Repeat this until you finished the egg white mixture.
6. Pour mixture carefully into pan (ungreased) and bake at 175C for 45 minutes or until done.  To check don't poke the cake otherwise the air will escape.  I just touch it and if it springs back properly...it is done - to me anyway. 
7. Now when it is done ...immediately invert it.  Turn it upside down on a cooling rack so it will hold its shape.  Cool for 3 hours.  Then after that loosen the cake with a knife.  It should fall out easily.  With mine....it didn't cause I only let it cool for 1 hour.  I was very impatient :P.
8. I hope your cake turns out !

update: Monday 15th February.   I tried making pandan chiffon cake again but it FAILED!! It came out all deflated and wet....????  I don't know what happened.  I think the one that I made for this post is my only ONE HIT wonder lol.