Coconut Pandan Chiffon Cake

Coconut Pandan Cupcakes

This recipe is very Southeast Asian. And I believe it is one of the few recipes that uses authentic Southeast Asian ingredients in a successful cake. By successful, I mean a soft and fluffy western-type cake – not a hard pudding.

Squeeze around a pound of coconut for its cream or no. 1 milk. You will need 6 to 8 oz of cream. Alternatively, you can just open a can of coconut cream. But be sure to taste the coconut cream before using it for the recipe. Some brands are too sweet, whereas others have a “chemical” or soapy taste. Over low heat, reduce the cream to half its volume. I like adding several leaves of pandan and/ or Kaffir lime to flavor the coconut cream. It ends up having a greenish hue. Cool mixture.

(to make coconut cream more flavorful, reduce it over low flame with some pandan leaves)

If you can get bottled pandan juice (for cooking) from Southeast Asian markets, you will need it here. Otherwise, juice a bundle of pandan leaves in a blender with around ½ cup water. Strain.

Preheat oven 350°.

On a mixer with the whisk attached, beat 9 egg whites with one teaspoon cream of tartar until frothy. Slowly add in 100 grams castor sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Set aside.

Combine the dry ingredients: 140 grams flour, two teaspoons baking powder and ½ teaspoon salt. You may also add one cup of desiccated or flaked coconut.

On a separate bowl, beat together 9 egg yolks with 155 grams castor sugar, 170 mL corn oil, one teaspoon vanilla, two tablespoons pandan juice, and one teaspoon green food color. Mix well, then sift in the dry ingredients. When mixed, gently fold 1/3 of the egg white mixture to lighten batter. Then pour this mixture over the remainder of the egg whites and fold.

Pour into an ungreased tube pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until cake springs back when touched. Invert pan and cool for one hour before loosening edges and unmolding.

(lining the muffin tins with cups will leave the cake with no edges to "cling on to" as the sponge cells develops - but the outcome was still favorable!)

I chose to make cupcakes out of this recipe and lined my tins with cupcake paper. Of course, this goes against the principles of making a true sponge cake, but my cupcakes ended up soft, fluffy and springy nonetheless!