Recently, I attended a cake baking class and learnt to make a pandan chiffon cake. While I can’t fully recreate the cake due to the absence of some ingredients, I listed down alternatives that can still help make a great cake.

Ingredients

Flavoured mix:

Meringue mix:

Cake pan

Use a 6 inch chiffon cake pan. I use:

While this cake pan is unable to hold double the amount of ingredients, it can hold 1.5 times the amount:

Flavoured mix:

Meringue mix:

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 160c.
2. Whisk yolk, oil, coconut, pandan, water.
   • Don’t need to whisk for too long - just mix well enough such that individual ingredients aren’t visible
3. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into (2).
   • Press down the remaining clumps with your finger and continue sifting as best as you can.
   • Invert the sift to pour the remaining ingredients into the mixing bowl.
4. Make meringue:
   1. Whip egg white at until foamy (speed 4-5 and usually done within 10-20 seconds).
   2. Add cream of tartar and whip for 5 seconds.
   3. Add 1/3 of the sugar and whip for 5 seconds.
   4. Add the next 1/3 of the sugar and white for 5 seconds again.
   5. Add the remaining 1/3 of the sugar but whip until the meringue reaches soft or firm peak. First-timers should aim for a firm peak so that the meringue is more durable despite the folding.
      • To check the firmness of the peak, stop the mixer, detach the balloon whisk, use the whisk to briefly but aggressively mix the meringue, then invert the whisk to the same position as that in the picture below. Check the shape of the peak and try to match it with any of the peaks shown below.
5. Using a spatula, add 1/4 of the meringue into (2).
   • Don’t scoop too aggressively or the meringue might liquify.
   • Use the spatula to scoop the mix from bottom and fold the meringue in.
   • Don’t press down on the meringue or it might liquify.
   • Add the next 1/4 of the meringue once the mix is almost homogeneous.
   • Repeat until all of the meringue is added.
6. Promptly pour the resulting mix into the cake pan.
   • Put the cake pan on a cloth.
   • Press down the chimney (this is to prevent leakage as you shuffle the pan).
   • Quickly move the pan forward and backward to level the batter.
   • While pressing down the chimney, lift the pan up and then put it back down quickly to pop large air bubbles.
7. Put the pan into the oven. Bake for 30 minutes.
8. Remove the pan from the oven and invert it.
9. When it is completely cool, unmould the cake carefully using your fingers, spatula, or cake knife.
   • If you’re using your fingers, pull the cake away from the mould instead of pressing it downwards, so that the cake doesn’t deflate. Dislodge the cake from the vertical walls before detaching the cake from the chimney.

Meringue peaks:

Where I got the picture of meringue peaks from

Mixer

A hand mixer is faster (but easier to overbeat) but I use a stand mixer because I used a stand mixer in my bread and cake classes and didn’t want to change that experience: