Pandan Chiffon Cake

Before I start, may I please request for one of my readers to please send me some more of pandan paste (as in the slide show below) or the canned pandan extract (that I used in buco pandan salad)? I would gladly pay for them (just could not find them here). My previous supply was sent by a co-blogger, stel of babyrambutan.net, and my present pandan and buco-pandan extracts were sent to me by Deb from California. Thanks to them, but I do not feel like requesting from them again. Dyahe....

The pandan chiffon cake recipe I have below is courtesy of my online friend Helen in Australia. I made it for the first time last Friday to bring to my friend Fe's birthday celebration last Saturday.

Helen cuts the sugar and coconut milk in half per her preference. I used the exact amounts stated in the procedure and still found the cake a bit less sweet than I had anticipated, although the sweet frosting made up for it. Fe, however, is like Helen in that she always cuts her sugars in half whenever she makes cakes, rolls, or kakanin. It is a matter of preference, so feel free to experiment with yours.

The pandan butter-coco-cream frosting was something I made up basing on some online recipes I found.

(The chocolate writing on the frosting was melted semi-sweet morsels that I piped out to write onto a parchment paper then cooled. Too bad it broke when I was trying to stand it up on the cake, so we just laid it down.)

Just this afternoon, Fe called me to ask whether I had posted the recipe yet, because she only had a slice of our leftover (We had two cakes, a white cake from my friend Ana, and this one, so Fe ended up with leftover of both. She had half of pandan cake left that Saturday). Then her son had finished the rest of the leftover, so now she wants to bake one.

Thanks, Helen, for this delightful pandan chiffon cake recipe!

Ingredients:
-Batter-
2 cups cake flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 cup sugar or to taste
1/3 cup oil
6 egg yolks
1 cup coconut milk
1 tsp pandan extract (I used paste)

-Meringue-
6 egg whites
1 tsp lemon (or vinegar)
1/2 cup sugar

-Pandan Butter-Coco-Cream Frosting-
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tsp buco pandan extract (McCormick)
2-4 cups confectioner's sugar (depends on how sweet you want it)

Instructions:
Sift dry ingredients together (up to 3 times, ideally). Mix well.
Make a well at the center then add oil, yolks, coconut milk and pandan paste. Mix well.
Beat egg whites with vinegar until soft peak forms. Add sugar slowly while beating, beat until stiff but still glossy (do not overbeat).
Add a little of the meringue to batter mixture and blend well, before slowly folding in the rest of the batter into the beaten whites.
Pour into an UNGREASED bundt pan or angel food cake pan (no grease apparently helps keep the volume fluffed up by helping the cake cling onto the walls).
Bake at 350 deg F for 45-50 minutes.
After baking, invert onto a wire rack WITHOUT REMOVING THE PAN. Let the cake COOL COMPLETELY before easing it out of the pan. You may use spatula to let the cake loose. (Again, these apparently help keep the chiffon cottony fluffy.)

Note: The emphasis I made in the procedures were tips I read about AFTER I made the cake. My chiffon cake was quite dense but still of satiny texture, and maybe I should have read more on those tips to maximize its volume and make it lighter.

For the icing, heat up the coconut milk on medium, stirring constantly until creamy. Let cool.

Cream the softened butter with 2 cups confectioner's sugar and pandan flavor, and add the coconut milk gradually. Taste if you like the sweetness already. If not, add some more sugar to taste. If it becomes to thick, you can thin to your desired spreading consistency by adding a little (about 1 tbsp increments) of regular milk or cream (if you have run out of heated coconut milk).

Let cake cool completely before spreading the pandan icing/frosting.