Pandan Coconut Butter Sponge Cake

Modified my previous Pandan Coconut Sponge Cake recipe to include ghee or clarified butter for a better crust colour and aroma. I also updated a new set of baking temperature catering to my new oven 😍

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

Fresh Pandan Leaf Paste

1. Cut 20g of pandan leaves into thin strips before blending with 50g of water into a smooth paste.

Keep the remaining fresh pandan paste in an air-tight container and store in a chiller/fridge.

Cake Ingredients

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

20g ghee/clarified butter/unsalted butter

20g organic coconut oil
60g top/cake flour

22g fresh pandan paste*
13g low fat milk
10g condensed milk

3 egg yolks

3 egg whites
pinch of salt
25g fine sugar

20g raw sugar

*Blend 20g fresh pandan leaves with 50g water, and collect 20g of pandan paste for use in this recipe.

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. Combine fresh pandan paste, milk and condensed milk a small glass. Set aside.

3. Warm ghee and coconut oil till reaching about 70℃. Pour in the top flour, remove from the heat source, and mix with a spatula into a smooth paste.

4. Pour in the pandan-milk mixture from Step 2, and mix well.

5. Combine the yolks, one at a time, to the batter. Set aside.

6.  Beat egg whites in a clean, dry and grease-free bowl, till frothy. Add in a pinch of salt, and first batch of the sugar mixture. Continue to beat the egg whites. Slowly add in the remaining sugar mixture in two batches. Stop beating after the meringue has achieved firm peak stage.

7. Transfer about 1/4 of the meringue to mix with the pandan batter from Step 5.

Pour the pandan mixture back to mix with the remaining meringue.

8. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan from Step 1.

Stand the cake pan over a grid iron in a 20cm square pan, filled with 1cm deep hot water,

9. Bake at lower rack of a preheated oven turning on only the upper heating coil at 160℃ for 30 minutes. Lower the temperature to 140℃ turning on both the upper and lower heating coils for about 30 minutes.

10. 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 20 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.