Rainbow Pandan Chiffon Cake

So, having loads of baking buddies can be really fun and inspirational but when most of my baking buddies are stay-home-mums (like Sharron!), they can bake almost any time they want except for when they're out doing mummy chores or having food with the rest of us! How I wish I were a tai-tai at home without much worries so all I can do is to bake all day! But a dream is just a dream.. it's definitely tough to depend on one in a family to support the family. Most families function on dual-incomes and the fav boy and I are no exception!

 So on Wednesday night, my hands were mightly itchy and were dying to bake this new idea I had for pineapple tarts! However, as I had a really long day in school and Hort Park prior to that, baking pineapple tarts were kinda out of the question. 

Then, Sharron needed some help to bake Tisha a cake for her birthday on Saturday! We decided to try out a rainbow chiffon like this and even though I reached home at 10+ that evening, the itchy-handed me decided to give the idea a try since I had left over pandan juice from the day before as well as left over coconut milk! So here is my not-too-successful-in-terms-of-color-but-still-tastes-great Rainbow Pandan Chiffon Cake! 

Fluffy Pandan Chiffon Cake

So, as I woke up this morning with great joy that the blog was finally open to public again with the block lifted, I was in great spirits! I baked 7 tubs of Pineapple Roses and baked 2 of these Fluffy Pandan Chiffon Cakes! It's also a great day as our church wedding venue has been confirmed! Charis Methodist Church it shall be! So, with this great joy.. I decided to bake 2 cakes on top of the 7 tubs of pineapple tarts I baked..

Pandan Chiffon Cakes are widely sold all around Singapore with Bengawan Solo's being one of the more popular ones. Giant/Shop & Save even sells them at a cheap cheap 2 bucks! Pandan chiffon cakes has always been my mum's favourite and it has also been my favourite when I was growing up. I can still remember stuffing myself silly with these fragrant slices. 

Some time ago, I tried a pandan chiffon cake using ieatishootipost's recipe but it didn't work out well for me as some parts of the cake were still relatively spongey. I believe this was due to the uneven folding of the batter back then.. well, that was till I decided to try out this recipe given to me by Vanessa using the hand folding method that I'm so deeply in love with!

Most people I know of would squirm at the thought of using their bare hands to fold the batter but to me, so as long as our hands are cleaned thoroughly before we fold the batter, it actually works better than a whisk or spatula!

So, here's the recipe that I love so very much as there's no food colouring involved.. all the flavour of the cake's from the pandan juice made from pandan leaves. This cake takes about 15 minutes to prep and an hour to bake. I'm using a 20cm base chiffon tin and it yielded a 2" tall cake. If you'd like, you can use a smaller tin to achieve a taller cake. 

30 April 2013: I made a taller version of the cake to full up more of my 20cm baking tin. 7 eggs would be perfect for this recipe provided that the eggs are the the 55 - 60g variety. I have provided the 7 egg version of the recipe in the ingredient list. 

Pandan Kaya Cake

This has been once of those cakes that I've been wanting to bake but hesistant to do so.. especially since I've heard of failures from friends around me when attempting it. However, since dad's birthday was approaching, I decided to give it a try to shy away from the usual chocolate cakes I'd bake. This is my second trial as I did the first one with merely half recipe.

This recipe is from Richard Goh but I took reference from Fong's Kitchen who modified RG's recipe to churn out this cake. This cake is on the less-sweet scale due to the reduced sugar. It was pretty well liked by those who tried. I even had 2 slices when I first baked it! 

This cake is one of the SIMPLEST layered cake I've ever baked as it's pretty much effortless after the sponge cake has been baked as compared to the usual layered cakes I bake. Nevertheless, this cake should take about 2 hours to prepare and this recipe yields a 9" round cake.

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Updated 17 August 2014

This cake was baked more than 2 years ago! My baking skills have since improved and I'd like to recommend an improvisation to this recipe.. The quantity is tweaked to get a cake that is easier to manage.. The proportions for the improved version will be listed below the original.. 

Pandan Kaya Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

PANDAN SPONGE CAKE

4 eggs (I used 60g Seng Choon Eggs)

100g plain flour

90g fine sugar

80g butter, melted

1/2 tsp pandan paste

20g pandan juice 

PANDAN KAYA 

(A)

400ml pandan juice

50g butter (salted)

120g fine sugar

(B)

70g Hoen Kwe flour

2 tsp agar agar powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pandan paste

250g fresh coconut milk

150g water

30ml whipping cream

3 tbsp dried dessicated coconut

A small bit of pink gel food colouring (I used Wilton)

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This is the 'improved' version I baked today.. 

Improved version

Ingredients:

PANDAN SPONGE CAKE

4 eggs (I used 55g Seng Choon Eggs)

100g plain flour

90g fine sugar

80g butter, melted

1/2 tsp pandan paste

20g pandan juice 

[Bake this in a 7" round tin instead of a 9" as recommended in this recipe. Cake will be taller and easier to slice. Cake ring should still be 9" so that it leaves a good gap at the side between the cake and the kaya.]

PANDAN KAYA 

(A)

400ml pandan juice

50g butter (salted)

120g fine sugar

(B)

70g Hoen Kwe flour

2 tsp agar agar powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pandan paste

250g fresh coconut milk

150g water

5 tbsp dried dessicated coconut

1 tbsp cocoa powder

Puteri Ayu (Steamed mini pandan coconut cakes)

I happen to chance upon these moulds when I was in the supermarket yesterday and I recalled the Puteri Ayu recipe I saw on Nasi Lemak Lover! I decided to buy it cos it was merely a dozen for close to 2 bucks (: I modified a lil' of the recipe and enjoyed this warm snack! This took me about an hour to cook and prepare (including blending). 

Puteri Ayu Recipe

This recipe yields about 14-15 mini steamed cakes

Ingredients:

COCONUT LAYER

60g freshly grated coconut

1/6 tsp salt

1 tsp corn flour

CAKE LAYER

2 eggs

100g fine sugar

150g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

120ml coconut milk

6 pandan leaves

1-2 drops of green food colouring