Pandan Chiffon Cake

I’m on a foam cake kick. Maybe I’ll bake my way through the different types.

I noticed that I’ve never posted any recipes using pandan (pandanus or screw pine leaves). Pandan is a popular flavor in many Asian recipes. I buy a little bottle of the thick-ish extract to use to flavor agar-agar and coconut jigglies. My aunt likes to make pandan cakes in various forms. Her steamed pandan cakes are delicious and her baked rice flour pandan cake is to die for. She uses the little envelopes of baking powder sold at Asian grocery stores. She swears it is different from the stuff in the regular grocery stores. I have only seen pandan leaves once in my life. I was still very young and my mom made pandan flavored chendol noodles. My mom, despite her awkwardness in the kitchen, can make some delicious Asian desserts. It was her specialty.

I didn’t have a tube pan and since I’ve been reading about sponge cakes, which lead me to reading about chiffon cakes, I was compelled to go buy a tube pan just for making this cake. I have a bundt pan but somehow I didn’t think it would work. I even saw a woman jerry-rig a regular springform pan with a small tin can in the middle. I was looking for a non non-stick pan but the closest I was able to find was one of those lighter non-stick pans. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. The alternative was to slowly scrape away the non-stick finish off the pan. Oh and get one with removable bottom or you’ll spend an eternity trying to get the cake out of the pan. The batter will stick even to the non-stick pan.

I took care to clean all my bowls and tools. I hid all the plastic bowls. One thing I learned from Home Ec class in the 8th grade was that plastic was evil when it came to making meringues. The reason is because no matter how hard you scrub, you can never remove the fat adhered to plastic. We often beat our egg whites in copper bowls in order to stabilize the whites. I don’t happen to own any copper bowls. I would love a copper kitchen but most copper options (such as the Williams-Sonoma exclusive copper KitchenAid mixer) cost more than the stainless or white options. In lieu of the copper bowls, we use cream of tartar to help stabilize the whites. Ever put cream of tartar on your tongue? Don’t try it. It is so acidic that it will make you really pucker up. The cream of tartar stabilizes the whites and keeps the liquid from leaching out. Without the cream of tartar, soon after whipping, you will see a pool of water form at the bottom of your bowl. No fun.

In order to ensure a successful chiffon cake, you should use slightly more egg whites to yolks. Hmm...I hate wasting eggs so I have this handy dried egg white powder (aka meringue powder) just for moments like these. What am I supposed to do with 2 extra egg yolks? (The extra whites from the last time I made creme brulee are still in the freezer. Perhaps one day it will become an omelet.) I use the powdered egg whites when I need a little more whites or when I make royal icing.
Pandan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:
150 grams unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
200 ml coconut milk (half a small can of Chaokoh)
8 egg yolks
10 egg whites or 8 egg whites and 4 teaspoons egg white powder + ¼ cup water
140 grams baker’s sugar
¼ cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons pandan extract

Mise en Place:
1. Clean and dry your mixer bowl. You want to make sure you remove all remnants of fat from the bowl.
2. Measure flour and baking powder and sift together. Set aside.
3. Separate egg yolks from whites. Put the egg yolks into a large mixing bowl but not your mixer bowl (unless you have an extra mixer bowl.) Hold egg whites in a glass or metal bowl but not in a plastic bowl. Remember fat is the enemy when you are trying to beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Reconstitute powdered egg white if using.
4. Measure out 60 grams of baker’s sugar and mix with cream of tartar and salt. Set aside.
5. Measure out the rest of the ingredients.

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 350 degrees.

2. Add 140 grams of baker’s sugar to the egg yolks and using a wire whisk or hand mixer, beat until thick and creamy. Add coconut milk, oil, vanilla extract and pandan paste to egg yolk mixture. Continue to mix until thick and frothy.

3. In your mixer bowl, add egg whites and your 60 grams of sugar, cream of tartar, and salt mixture. Beat on medium speed (approximately speed 4) until soft peaks are reached. Switch mixer to medium-high (approximately speed 8) until stiff peaks are reached.

How can you tell when you have peaks? If you have a tilt-head mixer you can simply tilt the mixer back and check the whisk. If you are using a hand mixer, you can lift the mixer out of the bowl, hold it upside down and check the beaters. I have a bowl-lift mixer so I use intuition. When it appears right, I unplug the mixer, lower the bowl, remove the whisk attachment, then take a dollop of the whites, invert the whisk to double-check.

4. Fold about a quarter of the egg whites into the batter and then gently fold the rest of the whites into the batter. Be gentle so that you do not deflate the whites. I don't worry too much about getting the mixture completely mixed together. That is why I get streaks of white. I would rather have some streaks instead of a flat chiffon cake.

5. Pour the batter into a chiffon, tube, or angel food pan and bake about 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

6. Remove from oven and immediately invert the cake and allow to cool about 2 hours. (Some people suggest inverting the pan on a wine bottle but I don’t really like the idea. The cake is up too high and is top heavy. If the cake should release itself from the pan, you have one hell of a mess. I like to rest/balance the inverted pan on two small three-inch high mini bundt cake pans. This allows enough air to pass so that the steam is release but is not too high that if the cake decides to release from the pan, it doesn’t gain any acceleration and damage itself as it falls.) Once the cake is cooled, gently run a knife or spatula around the edges and release cake by pushing the bottom up. Once you get the cake out of the pan, you will need to run a knife between the cake and the bottom portion of the pan to remove the tube. Be careful not to scratch the pans. I never serve baked goods in the pan that they were cooked in. I don’t trust people with knives cutting into my pans.

See the egg white streak?

High Altitude: I bake at high altitude (5,280 ft above sea level) and I usually try baking things first without making any suggested altitude adjustments and see the results. If I don’t like the results, I will try one of the suggestions. In this case, I didn’t have do adjust. The cake rose really nicely in the oven but during the last ten minutes of baking, it slightly deflated and collapsed a bit but the cake was still very moist, fluffy and yummy. Some adjustments to consider if not successful: slightly under-beat the whites, use less baking powder, place the cake in a cool instead of a preheated oven and bake for regular time.

So one of the reasons why I have been neglecting the blog is because of baseball. For us, baseball season started on April 10th and although we have not gone to every game, we still spend a lot of time watching it on tv. (Who would have thought that I would watch baseball on tv? Strange.) We went last night. The bf is going tonight and tomorrow.

Dinger, our mascot is dancing on top of the visiting team's dugout during the 7th inning stretch.

We are dedicated fans. It was 35 degrees out last night and the Rockies were playing one of their regular teams (the Padres). The top deck and the rockpile were pretty much empty. We are baseball snobs. We won't go to a baseball game if we have to sit on the upper deck.

Below is a picture of Brad Hawpe. He was injured during last night's game. It was very tense last night as we watched him lay on the ground for a good 5 - 10 minutes after he was hit in the head by a baseball. The catcher tried to throw him out on second base and the ball hit him. I hope he recovers soon.