Pandan is very popular plant in Asia. In Thailand it is mostly used in desserts and it is widely loved because of its unique fragrant smell. My family runs a café in Thailand and among all the cakes one of the most popular cake is the pandan sponge cake.
I have borrowed this recipe from my sister who is the main baker. She also gave me the recipe for the special coconut sauce. I managed to find some pandan leaves at the Asian store and decided to make it. The pandan flavor came out so good and combined with the coconut sauce it is divine. If you are a pandan lover like I am, you can hit up the Asian store and whip up this cake. Enjoy!
Ingredients
This recipe is for 3 lbs. Pandan cake
Ingredients A
100g Cake Flour
50g Fresh Pandan Extract (50g of fresh Pandan leaves)
50g Whole milk
4 Egg yolk
50g Canola Oil
30g Sugar
Ingredients B
4 Egg white
60g Sugar
1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
Ingredients C
Coconut flesh from 1 coconut (roughly around 130-150g)
35g coconut milk
190g Whipping cream
40g Sugar
1 Pinch of Salt
2tsp of coconut extract
Ingredients D
Coconut water from 1 coconut (roughly 1/2 – 1 cup)
10g corn starch
Ingredients E
2 Cups of Whipping cream
2 tbsp of icing sugar
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 300°F
2. Clean and cut up 50g of fresh Pandan leaves and add 1/2 cup of water and use hand blender until everything is blended. Strain all the liquid and discard the fiber. We will use 50g of this extract, you can save the left over in the freezer for next time.
3. In a large bowl whisk all ingredients A together until smooth and set it aside. (for better result make sure you sift the flour)
4. Making meringue. In a stand mixer beat up ingredients B until you get stiff peaks form.
5. Gently fold in meringue into ingredients A mixture until smooth. TIP: To get a nice smooth cake you have to beat a good meringue and fold in the meringue evenly to the ingredients A mixture.
6. Pour the batter into round 8″ pan and remove air bubble by dropping the pan on kitchen counter top 2-3 times. If you are using removable bottom cake pan like I do, you will need to wrap the bottom with aluminum foil because we will be baking this in a tray of hot water. Also wrap the pan after you remove the air bubble you might make a hole if you drop the pan with aluminum foil already wrapped.
Note: If you are not going to use removable bottom cake pan you will need to line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper first
7. Find a large pan that can fit the 8″ cake pan. It should be least 2″ deep. Add hot water into the pan about 3/4 inch of water.
8. Place the cake pan into the large pan with water and bake for 70-90 minutes. (Every oven is different on how the heat is distributed. Mine takes 70 minutes to cook)
9. Once cake is done (you can check by using toothpick and if nothing sticks to the toothpick, it is done) remove from oven and let it sit for a couple of minutes then take it out of the pan right away. If you leave it in the pan too long the cake will shrink.
Whipping Cream
1. Once the cake is cooled down, slice into 3 layers. TIP: I use sewing thread and wrap around the cake and pull it through to cut the cake)
2. Add 2 cup of whip cream to the mixer. Whip cream until stiff peaks are just about to form. Add in 2 tbsp of icing sugar until peaks form. Make sure not to over-beat, cream will then become lumpy and butter-like.
3. Put whipped cream about 1/4 inch thick on each layer of the cake with spatula and finally cover the whole cake with the remaining whipped cream.
Coconut Cream
1. Drain coconut water from coconut, once drained open the top half of the coconut with meat cleaver and scoop out all of the meat. Make sure not to go to deep and get the black skin of the coconut meat. Once you have all the coconut meat out, thinly slice them.
Tip: I usually flip the coconut and trimmed all the husk and find the eye. This is the soft part that you can poke through and let water out. I tip it on top of the glass and let it drip until all the liquid are out of the coconut
2. Combines all Ingredients C in a small to medium pot over medium heat.
3. In a bowl combines Ingredients D until all the corn starch dissolve.
4. When coconut sauce starting to boil slowly add coconut water with corn starch mixture into the pot.
5. Constantly stir until sauce starting to thicken. Note that sauce will be thicker once cooled.
