Pandan Gula Melaka Chiffon Cake

I have baked many of my popular pandan chiffon cake but this is my first attempt at baking pandan chiffon cake using gula melaka. It is indeed very delicious and full of pandan, coconut fragrance. You just cannot simply stop at one slice..... No pandan paste used at all. Just pure pandan juice. You can see the color is slightly dull green-brown due to the brown gula melaka.

Gula melaka is palm sugar, extracted from the sap of palm tree trunk. It has a a very fragrant smell and usually comes in cylindrical blocks. Its color ranges in different shades of brown. Pure gula melaka does not have sugar added to it and it has a really distinct fragrant aroma and taste. Sweetness varies and your resultant cake may have varying degree of sweetness. 

Pandan Gula Melaka Chiffon Cake
(This recipe makes a 21 cm cake)

Ingredients:
80g cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

4 egg yolks
73g gula melaka, chopped or broken into small pieces
80g coconut milk
4 tbsp pandan juce
24g corn oil
1/4 tsp salt

4 egg whites
20g caster sugar
1/4 + 1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Preparation:
Pre-heat oven at 180 degree celsius.

Method:

1. Dissolve the chopped gula melaka and coconut milk in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir to blend them and remove from heat to cool once gula melaka has dissolved.
2. Sift the cake flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.
3. Whisk the egg yolks, salt and cooled gula melaka mixture in another mixing bowl until well blended. Whisk in the pandan juce and corn oil.
4. Pour the flour mixture into the egg yolk mixture and whisk gently to blend all the flour and egg yolk mixture evenly.
5. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the balloon whisk, beat the egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Add in the cream of tartar and increase the speed to medium high. Beat until soft peaks form. Add in the sugar slowly, increase speed to high and beat until stiff, glossy peak forms.
6. Take 1/3 of the egg white mixture and add to the egg yolk mixture. Whisk gently with the folding technique to lighten the mixture.
7. Add the balance egg white mixture to the above and use a balloon whisk or spatula to fold gently until all well-blended.  Do not overmix.
8. Pour the mixture into a 21-cm chiffon tube pan. Place it in the lower third rack of the oven. Bake at 180 degree celsius for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 165 degree celsius and bake for another 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.