I was intrigued by the green color of this cake, and also the description of pandan. I’d been searching out what the “woody” taste of some Japanese restaurant’s green tea is, and the flavor of pandan comes really close. Brad and I went to our local Asian market to find pandan in any form: paste, juice, leaves, anything remotely close to what this cake called for. We came home with beautiful frozen leaves, which I defrosted and rinsed.
Thank goodness the recipe provided instructions on how to make the pandan juice! I chopped up all of the pandan leaves and we blended them with water to create the juice. I think these are gorgeous on their own:
The pandan juice tastes bitter and a little woody, which I liked. I was excited to create the green cake, too! Having never made a chiffon cake before, the whole thing was a bit of a trip – six total eggs, digging out our chiffon cake pan, patiently waiting for it to finish baking and cooling so we could peel it out. But it was all worth it!
Brad, admittedly, didn’t like the cake. I absolutely loved it – I thought it was a little sugary, but still with that lovely wooden taste that I’d been craving. It didn’t come out as green as I’d hoped, but maybe we’ll do it again with our leftover leaves!
Final tips:
- grease the pan; it was definitely too tough to get this cake out of ours!
- sprinkle some sugar on the top for a little extra sweetness
- don’t be afraid to go overboard on the pandan!
Delicious pandan chiffon cake! I am from Malaysia, located in South East Asia and pandan is used a lot in all kind of dishes & cakes:) Wish I can find fresh or frozen (like you did). Unfortunately I have to stick to my pandan essence:( The smell of pandan is simply delightful. Good job on the pandan cake!
I’m from Singapore, and I’m not sure if it’s traditional but we’ve always had pandan cake made with coconut milk. It’s what makes it fairly decadent in comparison with normal chiffon cakes, but also very aromatic. Pandan leaves can also be used to boil chinese hot desserts..
Pandan cake with coconut milk sounds amazing. Do you have a recipe for that? I’d love to try it!
Hello, this is a recipe from another food blogger in Singapore.. http://ieatishootipost.sg/2010/05/how-to-make-pandan-chiffon-cake-almost.html I hope that helps.
Also, your chiffon cake reminds me of home.. (Currently away studying)
Oh my goodness! this post was an encouragement to me! I too have been admiring all the gorgeous, tasty-sounding pandan desserts from my fellow bloggers, but all I could find were frozen pandan leaves, which I have tried chopping, boiling, grinding, juicing, etc. and so far I haven’t gotten that awesome bright green coloring and the juice tasted grassy and bitter instead of “floral and vanilla” as others had described pandan tasting so I thought i had to be doing something wrong, but I think there really must just be a big different in the essence from the frozen/fresh leaves. Glad you liked the cake! Coconut milk is a very tasty addition I have found, but it can overpower the delicate pandan flavor as well…good luck with the rest of you pandan leaves :)