Pandan Coconut Sponge Cake 香兰椰香海绵蛋糕

Continuing from my orange butter sponge cake, I used another all-time favorite cake ingredient - the pandan leaf to bake an aromatic light sponge cake. With just one blade of pandan leaf, it was enough to leave a sweet aroma that lingered in the kitchen for a long time. The fresh pandan leaf also gave the cake a wonderful natural green hue 😍

Yield: one round cake
Pan size: 6x3" round cake pan

Ingredients

All ingredients in room temperature
Using 55g Omega 3&6 eggs

40g organic coconut oil
60g top/cake flour

5~6g fresh pandan leaf
32g milk
10g golden syrup/honey

3 egg yolks

3 egg whites
pinch of salt
45g fine sugar

Directions

1. Line an 6" round cake pan with parchment paper at the base. Need not grease the wall of the pan. Place a grid iron at the base of a 20cm square pan. Set aside.
I bought the grid iron from Daiso.

2. Cut pandan leaf into thin strips and add to milk in a small blender cup. Blitz the content till the pandan leaf becomes very fine. No need to strain the mixture.

3. Collect about 31~32g of pandan mixture, and combine with 10g golden syrup in a small container.  Set aside.

4. Heat coconut oil at low temperature till reaching about 65℃ or some convection waves/current start to form at the bottom of the warm coconut oil.
Pour the top/cake flour into the warm coconut oil, mix briefly using a silicone spatula, and remove from the stove. Continue to fold till it becomes a smooth paste.

5. After the flour has fully combined with the coconut oil, mix in the pandan mixture from Step 3.

6. Next, add in the egg yolks, one at a time, and mix well.

Cover the pandan batter and set aside.

7. Beat egg whites in a clean, dry and grease-free bowl, till frothy. Add in a pinch of salt,

and first batch of the fine sugar. Continue to beat the egg whites. Slowly add in the remaining fine sugar in two batches.

Stop beating after the meringue has achieved almost stiff peak stage.

8. Transfer about 1/4 of the meringue to combine with the pandan batter from Step 6.

Pour back the pandan batter to mix with the remaining meringue into a smooth batter.

9. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bang the cake pan against the work top to level the batter and to get rid of trapped air bubbles.

Place the cake pan into the 20cm square pan, and fill the square pan with about 1cm deep of hot water.

10. Bake at lower rack of a preheated oven at 170℃, turning on only the upper heating element, for about 40 minutes.

After the 40 minutes heating, reduce the temperature to 150℃, turning on both the upper and lower heating elements, for about 20 minutes.

11. Remove the cake from the oven. If you want to dry the cake after un-moulding, you may want to keep the oven door close to conserve the heat.

Drop the cake with the pan from a height of about 10 cm to a kitchen towel thrice.

Let the cake cool down for about 25 minutes in the pan.

When the cake starts to pull away from the wall of the pan, jiggle to loosen the cake,

and turn it out to a cooling rack.

You may want to dry the cake in a warm oven using the remnant heat for about 15 minutes.

Cut and enjoy 😋😋