Steamed Gula Melaka Swirl Pandan Cake 蒸椰糖香兰蛋糕

A sweet aromatic steamed cake comprising of three good "partners" in flavour - pandan leaves, gula melaka and coconut milk. Steamed plain egg cake can be quite plain in taste, but with this combination of flavours - they just transform a normal cake into a very palatable sweet dessert. Using natural ingredients are the fundamental criteria in baking this nice cake :)

Yield: 14.5 cm round cake

Appliances:

Powerful food blender

Electric hand mixer

14.5 cm round cake tin

Ingredients

All ingredients in room temperature 

75g cake flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

18g gula melaka, chopped

1 tsp water

60g warm water

10g pandan leaves

10g coconut powder

10g condensed milk

10g vegetable oil

2 egg whites

50g fine sugar

2 egg yolks

Directions

1. Line a 14.5cm round cake tin with parchment paper. If you're using a removable base cake tin, wrap it with aluminum foil.

2. Loosen cake flour with baking powder. Set aside.

3. Heat up chopped gula melaka and 1 tsp water into a smooth paste. Cover and set aside in a warm place. After cooling down, the gula melaka paste will become more sticky which makes it more difficult to combine with the batter later.

4. Blend 60g of warm water with pandan leaves, coconut cream powder, condensed milk and oil, using a food blender.

Using warm water is to facilitate coconut cream powder to dissolve.

5. Beat egg white and sugar in a clean and dry mixing bowl till firm peak stage.

Beat the egg whites till formy.

Add in the sugar in 3 batches, and continue to beat at medium high speed.

When the meringue starts to form a steady trail behind the moving whisks, lower the speed till the meringue reaches the firm peak stage.

6. Beat in the egg yolk, one at a time.

7. Add in the flour mixture from (3) and pandan mixture from (4) in alternate sequence. Starting with flour and end with flour.

Do not over mix the batter.

9. Pour about 1/4 of the combined batter to mix with the gula melaka paste.

10. Pour the two batters in alternate sequence into the lined cake pan.

At the final layer, drops a few dollops of gula melaka batter onto it.

Finally, run a stick round the batter to create the swirl.

Bang the cake tin against the table top to get rid of trapped air bubbles.

11. Steamed the batter at medium high heat for 10 minutes. 

Then reduce the temperature to medium low for about 8 to 10 minutes, or till an inserted cake tester came out clean.

12. Remove the cake with the tin from the pot, and drop the cake with tin from a height of about 10 cm. This helps to minimize the cake from shrinking after cooling.

Leave the cake with the tin on a cooling rack for 5 minutes.

Transfer the cake out of the cake tin onto the cooling rack to cool down further.

13. Cut the cake after cooling down.