Pandan Chiffon Cake ( work in progress )

Hi everyone!

I was feeling a little ambitious so I thought I give chiffon cake a try. I tried it once before last year but that one ended in a disaster as the cake shrunk after it cooled down and it was undercooked. But after long consideration, I decided that it is time again that I tackle this challenge of making the perfect chiffon cake that will be light and fluffy. Being in Malaysia for another week before Ihave to head back to Australia, I decided to utilize local ingredients instead.



I decided to go with the Asian version of vanilla, Pandan. I only recently knew that Pandan was the Asian version of Vanilla which make sense as both have a very strong distinctive taste and smell and Vanilla is very common in western countries as is Pandan in Asia. I found this small piece of information  from Poh, from MasterChef Australia runner up for the first season, thanks Poh!! She is by the way a Malaysian and has her own TV show and books so do check out her recipes.

The last time I made this cake, I used the pandan leaves that my parents grew at the back of the house but the undercooked pandan chiffon was very unappetizing so I decided to use a different recipe that requires pandan paste instead of blended pandan leaves.  Unfortunately, for this post, the cake wasn't a full success as I didn't get all the elements of a chiffon cake right. The cake was more compact due to over folding of the meringue with the egg mixture or it could be that I didn't beat the meringue enough. The top part of the cake was undercooked and very mushy so I had to scrape that part off the cake. But overall the cake wasn't as bad as the first time but it really isn't a chiffon cake as it didn't have the key elements that makes it a chiffon cake, what I have now is just a cake! :)

So  I won't be releasing the recipe for this once I can completely guarantee that I have successfully made it work. Personally, I have read few hundred recipes and every time I fail, I am unsure if it is my technique or it is the recipe that isn't tested enough. So I will make sure that it works first before sharing with you all so nobody will incur any losses in terms of time, effort and money invested in ingredients.

So any readers who have successfully done a Pandan Chiffon Cake please, I would appreciate some ideas and tips so my next try would be a success. thanks!

R. Deou