Pandan Soya SpongeCake 烫面香兰豆浆蛋糕

Distress over the unsightly cracks on the spongecakes has been my long battling problem. Hate to see a canyon sitting in the middle of a smooth cake crust. 

I was delighted to learn the trick from Sharon之味, who suggested to bake a stable thick crust by turning on only the upper heating coil of an oven to prevent the bottom expanding batter from pushing its way up and cracking the crust. The cake is later baked through by turning on both the upper and lower heating coils in the final stage.

Voila, this method really works! I'm sure this temperature control sequence will work for you if your oven have a fiery hot base heating coil like mine Y(^_^)Y

Yield: one 14cm diameter round cake

Cake mould: 6" round mould, 7.5cm tall

Ingredients

All ingredients in room temperature 

Using 60g eggs

40g coconut/vegetable oil 椰油/植物油

50g top/cake flour 低筋面粉

40g lightly sweetened soya milk*, 微甜豆浆*

10g pandan juice 香兰叶汁

3 egg yolks 蛋黄

1 egg 全蛋

1/8 tsp salt 盐

3 egg whites 蛋白

40g fine sugar 细砂糖

* soya milk can be replaced by milk

* 豆浆可用牛奶代替

Direction 

1. Line a 6" round cake pan with a small piece of parchment paper if you are using a fixed base cake pan. This is to facilitate removal of cake from the pan.

You may omit this step if you are using a 6" removal base cake pan. 

2. Mix soya milk and pandan juice.

You can increase the porportion of pandan juice to soya milk, as long as they add up to 50g.

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Or you may want to blend soya milk with a blade of pandan leaf to minimize wastage of pandan leaf. You'll get a lighter colour cake, but the pandan flavour is not compromise ><

Soya milk + pandan leaf = 50g

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3. Loosen the flour using a hand whisk. Set aside.

4. Heat coconut/vegetable oil till you see convection current starting to appear at the surface of the oil (about 82~85 degree Celsius). 

Do not over heat the oil as we don't want to fry the flour.

5. Remove the bowl of hot oil from the stove, add in the flour and stir till smooth.

6.  In a separate bowl, blend the egg yolks with one egg.

7. Stir in the soya-pandan mixture from (2) to the yolk batter.

8. Add the cooked dough from (5) to (6). And mix into a smooth dough. Cover and keep aside.

9. Mix in a pinch of salt. Cover and set aside.

10. Beat egg white till frothy, for about 30 seconds. Add in the sugar, in 3 batches.

11. Beat at medium high speed at the start and reduce to low speed towards the end of the process. Beat the meringue till almost reaching the stiff peak stage. The standing meringue has a slight dip at the tip.

12. Scoop about 1/3 of the meringue into the yolk batter at (9). Fold to mix.

13. Pour the yolk batter back to the remaining meringue and fold to mix into a smooth batter.

14. Pour the batter into the 6" round cake mould. Lightly bang the cake mould a few times to remove any trapped air bubbles in the batter.

15. Place the cake pan in a tray of 1cm-deep hot water. 

Steam-bake the batter in a preheated oven set at 170 degree Celsius with only the upper heating coil for 35~40 minutes at lower rack of the oven. 

After 35 to 40 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 150 degree Celsius with both upper and lower heating, for another 20 minutes.

If the cake brown too fast, cover it with an aluminum foil.

End of baking.

Oven temperature and baking duration may differ based on individual oven.

16. Remove the cake with pan from the oven and drop the pan with the cake from a height of about 10 cm for about three times. This is to prevent the cake from over shrinking during the cooling period.

Then let them cool down on a cooling rack for about 15 ~20 minutes. 

While the cake is still warm, runs a silicon spatula along the edge of the cake. Remove the cake from the cake pan and cool down on a wire rack. This is to prevent accumulation of moisture at the base of the cake.

You may want to dry up the sides of the cake by keeping it in the warm oven for about 15 minutes. Turn on the oven to 90 degree Celsius for 2 minutes.

17. Slice the cake and enjoy :)

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Cake using 1 blade of pandan leaf blended with soya milk directly.

Great appreciation goes to Sharon之味 for her great recipe 

http://xingfuzhiwei.blogspot.sg/2015/01/blog-post_79.html?spref=pi&m=1