October 28, 2015

SpOoOoOoky Pandan Chiffon Cake

Okay, that title is only there because it’s almost Halloween. This isn’t that spooky, but what you see here is a green cake, made without dyes or magic spells or any other kind of tomfoolery. That pallor is all natural, baby, thanks to the pandan leaf.

Pandan, also called screwpine, is a common “flavoring agent” (meaning it infuses things, but you don’t really eat the leaf itself — kind of like a bay leaf) in Southeast Asian cuisine, and one of my favorite pandan employments is in pandan chiffon cake. It’s fragrant in the way that excellent Jasmine rice is fragrant, and just a little coconut-y. In fact, cooks often bump up the coconut-ish flavor with additional coconut milk, which I definitely did here.

Cooking with whole pandan can be kind of an ordeal, but it is absolutely worth the effort if you’re always looking for a barely-sweet, light, almost angel food-like cake to have in the mornings with your coffee or tea. If your city has a big Asian grocery store — preferably a Chinese or Vietnamese one because my Japanese supermarket didn’t have this, but the Chinese one did — go there and look around the frozen vegetables section; that’s where I found the frozen pandan leaves I used here. With whole pandan, you can get that beautiful green hue without food coloring! Pandan extract can also work when whole pandan isn’t available, but be warned that it can also be a bit cloying and artificial-tasting. Bummer.

The trick is cut your pandan leaves up into half-inch pieces, then blitz it all in a blender with some water. The recipe I followed (linked below) said to only use a few tablespoons of water, but my blender pitched a fit over that so I ended up using about a cup of water for the entire thing and still got plenty of pandan flavor and green coloring.

For optimal green coloring with fresh pandan leaves, make the “pandan juice” part of this recipe a day ahead of time and store it in your fridge in a bowl or glass. The next day, a lot of the green coloring should have settled down into the bottom of the glass or bowl. Pour off the top part of the juice and only keep the bottom 1/2 cup where all the super-green sediment is. This will give your cake a punch of coloring and flavor!

Pandan Chiffon Cake
Adapted from Life is Great

Yields: 1 cake
Prep Time: 40 minutes or 1 day, 30 minutes
Cook Time: 40-60 minutes
Total Time: ~1 hour, 40 minutes

For the pandan juice:
7 oz pandan leaves, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 – 1 cup water

For the main batter:
2 cups + 1 tbs cake flour, sifted (200 g)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
8 large egg yolks
6 tbs coconut oil, warmed to a liquid state
1/3 cup + 1 tsp caster sugar (100 g)
6 tbs pandan juice (see above)
2 tbs coconut milk

For the meringue batter:
8 large egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/3 cup + 1 tsp caster sugar (100 g)

angel food cake pan, ungreased and unlined

Prepare the pandan juice:

Blend the pandan leaves and water until it forms a paste or slurry. Strain this through a cheesecloth into a bowl or glass, squeezing out as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids.

For a more intense green color, let this rest in the fridge overnight and then only use the juice near the bottom of the glass where the green sediment has settled.

Assemble the cake:

Preheat the oven to 340°F.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, caster sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a separate large bowl, whisk together the coconut oil and egg yolks until they’re well combined. Add in the 6 tbs of pandan juice and 2 tbs of coconut milk and whisk thoroughly to combine. If the coconut oil solidifies at any point during this process, fill another large bowl with warm water and place the bowl containing the coconut oil mixture into it (do not get any water into it) and whisk until the warm temperature returns the coconut oil into a liquid state.

Once the egg mixture has been thoroughly combined, whisk in the flour mixture in 3 additions. Whisk this until there are no lumps left.

In the bowl of a mixer with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar on high speed until the egg whites foam up.

Slowly add in the caster sugar in 3 additions and continue beating until the egg whites can hold a stiff peak.

Gently fold a third of the egg white meringue mixture into the main batter to lighten the batter. Once that has been thoroughly incorporated, gently fold in the rest of the meringue.

Pour this into the angel food cake pan and bake for 40 – 60 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool the cake upside down, either on its attached feet or by resting the middle funnel of the cake on a tall glass bottle (just make sure the bottle is stable). Let it cool for at least 2 hours.

Once the cake is completely cooled, run a thin knife along the edges and bottom of the cake to detach it from the pan. Enjoy your delicious green cake!

This keeps for about 5 days wrapped in cling wrap on the countertop. I also keep mine under a cake dome for extra protection against drying out — and also because what cake doesn’t look excellent under a cake dome?