Pandan Palm Sugar Cotton Cake

A cottony soft cake with one of the best paired flavours - pandan and palm sugar. Yummy yummy 😋😋

Ingredients

All ingredients in room temperature
Using 55g eggs

40g coconut oil
50g top/cake flour

3 egg yolks

12g fresh pandan paste*
15g milk
30g granulated palm sugar/gula melaka

3 egg whites
pinch of salt
40g fine sugar

* blend 20g fresh pandan leaves with 50g water, and collect 12g of the pandan paste without filtering. Keep the remaining in the chiller for future use.

Directions

1. Line a 6x3" round cake pan with parchment paper at the base. Place a grid-iron in a 20cm square pan. Set aside.

2. Dissolve granulated palm sugar in milk.

3. Mix the palm sugar mixture to 3 egg yolks.

4. Blend in the pandan paste.

Set aside.

5. Warm coconut oil till convection waves can be seen at the bottom.

Mix in the top flour using a silicon spatula into a smooth paste.

6. Pour the coconut oil paste from Step 4, to mix with the pandan mixture from Step 3.

Set aside.

7. Prepare meringue by beating egg whites with pinch of salt and fine sugar, till reaching firm peak stage.

8. Take about 1/4 of the meringue from Step 6 to mix with the pandan batter from Step 5.

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

9. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bang a few times to get rid of trapped air bubbles.

Place the cake pan over a grid iron in a 20 cm square pan filled with 1cm deep of hot water as water bath.

10. Bake at lower rack of a preheated oven at 170℃ turning on the upper heating element only for 40 minutes. Lower the temperature to 150℃ turning on both the upper and lower heating elements for 20 minutes. This method of heating will ensure a crack-free cake from my oven 😊
You can also bake at 160℃ with both upper and lower heating for 60 minutes.

11. Transfer the cake out of the oven.

Drop the cake with the pan over a height of about 10 cm thrice to prevent excess shrinkage to the cake during cooling down.

Let the cool over a wire rack for about 20 minutes, or till the side of the cake shrink away from the wall of the pan.

Remove the cake from the cake pan,

and return to warm oven to dry out the exterior of the cake for about 15 minutes.

12. Cut the cake after cooling down completely. Enjoy 😋