This pandan flavor is big in Asia. We use so many of this pandanus leaves in our cooking. Mostly desserts.
Chiffon cake with pandan flavor is one of the most love. Maybe because we grow up having this soft and fluffy cake. We use pandan sometimes when cooking our rice, to get that fragrant.
You can find pandan leaves in the frozen section at the Asian grocery store. Very rare you’d find the fresh one. Which if I found a fresh one, ended up saving them in my freezer anyway.
If you can’t find the frozen pandan leaves, then pandan paste, we call it pasta (not the noodle) pandan. Comes in a bottle, consistency like syrup.
I bought a 1 liter bottle when I visit Indonesia last summer. Thought it was pandan paste, turned out I scored an essence of pandan and Suji, another fragrant leave use in so many of our dessert. If you see green dessert that’s not matcha, your best bet, they are made of these leaves.
There are few keys to watch when making chiffon cake. Besides the regular room temperature eggs. The egg whites need to be whisk until soft peak. Not too stiff, it will make the cake dry.
Yolks and flour mixture need to be smooth, no lumps. I used to use spatula to mix it. But now, to make sure it’s smooth, I use hand mixer. So while my KitchenAid busy whisking those egg white, I mix my yolks with the hand mixer.
Last thing, folding egg white into the yolks. Fold, not stir. Gently.
The pan, ungreased. You do not want to greased them. Because at the end after baking, we want to flip the cake upside down. Let gravity works so it stays tall.
Give it a try, once you master the how to make chiffon cake, you can play around with other flavor. Mocha and chocolate are my other fave. Subs the coconut milk with milk and use the flavor you like. Orange or lemon are good too.
They are soft and fluffy and so light that I don’t feel bad eating them lol. Unlike the Lapis Legit (thousand layer cake) or Lapis Surabaya which use 30-45 Yolks for 1 8″ cake with tons of butter…real butter. So rich that we cut them in thin slices to serve. But it is good.. maybe one of these days I will make the video for that. I just baked couple of the Lapis Surabaya this morning before baking the pandan chiffon cake. 😚. Why didn’t I think about making the video 🤷🤦.
Oh well.. we will tackle that another day. Right now, let’s enjoy the pandan chiffon cake with a cup of tea. Life is good ya’ll! Happy baking!
The video can be found on my YouTube channel. Click the link below:
CookBakeEatHappy 