Chua Family's New Project: Pandan Cake!

Ace loves to eat pandan cake and try as we might, we just could not find it here anywhere.. so leh, I got the idea that maybe we can try to bake it ourselves..  But tat itself presented it's own set of problems..

The last time Max went back to Singapore, I suggested that he buy the Prima Pandan Cake premix but he did not manage to find it at all.. and so, I gave up the idea of ever baking my own pandan cake here in Dubai and just lived with the idea that I would go back during the summer holidays and enjoy instead...

Fast forward to a few months later, a friend who was going back to Singapore for good donated all her baking goodies to me. Inside her bag, I found Cream of Tartar, Baking Powder and Max told me that I could buy pandan leaves from the Pinoy supermart here (as I did not realize that I have pandan paste in the bag my fren passed to me then, I tot it was green colouring!)...

And this happened right after the bake sale where I had baked a bunch of muffins for Ace to sell in school. And so, the Chua Family decided that we will embark on the project of baking a Pandan Cake together!:)

But before this, I had to decide.. do I bake this cake using my $100 wok tat can also bake cakes.. or do I do this using my Happy Call Pan? OR do I just make use of the oven we have in this kitchen?? I decided to go for the Oven as I feel that the other two options required precise control of heat.. which is a luxury I dun have since I am using an electric stove with only three options.. low heat, medium heat and high heat....


While reading up and searching for receipes online, I discovered that it is actually very difficult to achieve a pandan cake tat tastes good, is fluffy and soft but has a nice shape and looks good... so leh, I set very low goal of just having a cake that tastes good!:) hahahah.. And as what my sister, Clari, told me before, as long as you follow a recipe faithfully, you can't go very wrong..:)

With this blind faith, I woke up early on Friday morning (6.30am) and started to prepare all the ingredients to bake our cake!

First I had to grind the pandan leaves and smash them up to get pandan juice from them.. the smell of pandan is so heavenly sweet... midway while crushing the leaves, Ace woke up and offered to help me crush the leaves:)

Creaming the egg yolk...Thanks to Charlotte for not just donating her baking goods but also donating this bowl to us cos I dun have another mixing bowl.. so just used this big bowl she gave me:)

 Ace helping to add in water.. the very last step of this portion..

 And then Max, the muscle man woke up and volunteered to help me beat the egg whites.. They have to be beaten till they are STIFF! Max says it was a good workout for him and when he was done, he could feel that muscles aching and growing.. and so he has volunteered to be official egg beater cum mixer for all other cake projects from now on...

 And the cake goes into the oven.. initially it rose.. then it split.. and because the inside part kept turning darker than the outside part, I had to keep opening the door to turn the cake tin... something went wrong and after puffing up, the cake started to SINK IN..

 Resting the cake upside down on a cup and per what the receipe recommended..

 And this is the end result.. The cake is not very green because we were using pandan leaves but I liked it tat it tasted natural:)

 Din look very good but it tasted heavenly, soft and spongey.. PASS!

 Ace loved it!:)

The WHOLE cake was gone within minutes! And so, it was a wonderful breakfast on a wonderful friday morning:)

I posted pictures of the cake online and got lots of encouragement from friends.. it was then while talking about this on FB, I realized tat I DO HAVE PANDAN PASTE.

And so, as per requested by Max, I decided to bake the cake ONE MORE TIME:)

This time round, I wanted to do better and went online to research the finer details or baking (since I am a baking idiot and I know it is the little things like the temperature of the eggs and what to put in first or last tat matter but yet I dunno wat exactly I should do...)

I am super happy I found this recipe from Cuisine Paradise. It is clear, precise and easy to follow and even has a HCP option. (And I love her other recipes too!!!) And I also discovered a webpage on extra tips on how to bake a GOOD pandan cake from Dr Leslie Tay of the famous I Eat, I Shoot, I Post blog.. So thankful to them.. I read through the details carefully and planned my steps properly...

As one of the tips was to use a cake pan tat was exactly the right size for the cake instead of one that is too big so I rearranged my portions such tat the amount would be just nice for this one and only cake pan tat I have... My bestie told me this is not really pandan cake pan.. if i used the traditional type of cake pan, the cake will look even better... but it is the only one tat I have and since I dun have high standards and it worked out ok.. i think i will stick to it;)

 Baking the pandan cake again.. this time, it split but it din SINK!:)

 The end result looks greener and much more like the pandan cake we are used to eating in Singapore:)

 And since we had a gathering and to thank Charlotte for her donation, I brought some along for everyone to try.. But leh, my son is very cute.. he sort of couldnt bear to part with the pandan cake and monitored the amount that everyone ate very closely.. hahahah;)

 With the success of this one, there were more cries to repeat the baking process but as I had gotten tired of pandan flavour, we decided that our next one will be chocolate chip flavour!:)

 Using hot chocolate powder that Ganma Karen bought for us and the chocolate chips i bought the other day, I made this:)

Tasted heavenly!:)

Next week, I am going to try to make New York Cheesecake.. to do that, we will have to buy a new cakepan and some cream cheese.. alas, when we tried to find cream cheese, we couldnt find it at all in the supermarts! Cream cheese block is apparently not available in UAE! Luckily, after some research, I found a replacement available here in the UAE.. wish me luck!:)


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