Pandan Chiffon Cake

One of our favorite cake is pandan chiffon cake. I have difficulty to make a good pandan chiffon cake. Despites my effort to do some trial and error or trying out several recipes, it seems that my pandan chiffon cake was always somehow shrink or not big enough for my cake form.

Some time ago, I posted about how I tried to modify the recipe using design of experiment (DOE) principles by changing 2 different variables. After some trials, I seems to get the correct amount to fill in my cake form. So this time, I got a big enough cake compared to my cake form. 

For the cooling of the cake, I made use of a bottle and a couple of mugs. The bottle was used to hang the cake form upside down, while the mugs were used to hold the sides of the cake form, just as an extra support. After the cake was cool enough, I turned the cake form back.

Luckily this time, the cake turned out quite nice. The texture was soft, airy and the shrinkage was also minimal. I was quite happy with the results. I  used no fan-forced method when I put the cake batter in the oven. 

As usual, despites the imperfectness, we still enjoyed this cake.

Ingredients:

A

9 egg yolks

25 grams fine granulated sugar

180 grams cake flour

1/2 tsp salt

100 ml vegetable oil

150 ml coconut milk

a few drops of pandan paste (you can also use fresh pandan leaves - obtain first the juice to use)

B

9 egg whites

100 grams fine granulated sugar

1 tsp cream of tartar or 1 tbsp lemon juice

How to make:

1. Shift the flour. Put aside.
2. Mix the ingredients (A) except the dry ingredients and pandan paste until it mixed well.
3. Add the dry ingredients step-by-step while mixing the ingredients. After all the dry ingredients are mixed add the pandan paste, mix everything until it reaches smooth consistency. Put aside the egg-flour mixture.
4. In another bowl, mix (ingredients B) the egg whites until it is frothy. Add the cream of tartar and sugar until it becomes medium peak (peaks hold their shape pretty well, except that the tip of the peak curls over on itself when the beaters are lifted).
5. Mix briefly the egg-flour mixture (A) to make sure that it is still smooth. Fold in the egg-flour mixture into the egg whites mixture (B) in three batches. Make sure that the (A) and (B) are fully incorporated.
6. Preheat the oven (160 degree Celcius). I used fan forced to preheat the oven but switch to lower heat only when baking the cake.
7. Pour the mixture into a chiffon cake pan (I used 25 cm cake pan). Baked the cake using lower heat (160 degree Celcius) for around 30 minutes and then switch to upper and lower heat for the last 20 minutes to get a nice brown surface. 
8. Do a prick test, by pricking a satay stick into the middle of the cake. If it is still wet, bake it a bit longer.
9. When it is done, turn off the oven. Let it cool down in the oven for around 5 minutes. 
10. Remove the cake pan from the oven, invert it upside down using bottle to hold the center of the cake pan. Or you can also use mugs to support the sides of the cake pan, while inverting it and during the cooling down.
11. After the cake is cooled, remove the cake from the cake pan. Serve the cake.