The cake shares many common ingredients with other cakes, such as flour, eggs, butter or margarine, and sugar.[11] The cake's distinct ingredient is the pandan leaf, which gives the cake its iconic green colour.[12] Occasionally, the cakes will contain ingredients with green food colouring to further emphasize the green hue[13]. The cakes are not always made with the leaf juice, as they can be flavoured with Pandanusextract, in which case colouring is only added if a green hue is desired.[14] Freshly squeezed juices from pandan leaves also give the cake a stronger aroma compared to pre-juiced essences.[11]
Pandan leaf, the primary ingredient for the colour and taste of a pandan cake.
The pandan cake common in Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Singapore is a soft sponge cake akin to the chiffon cake, made without any additional coating or frosting.[15] Most pandan cakes will sport a brown outer crust.[11] Many recipes also call for the Pandan cake to be cooled upside down,[11][16] which is a technique often used with various chiffon cakes to prevent the cake from flattening out, giving it its fluffy structure.[17]
History and origin
In Southeast Asia, cake-making techniques were brought into the region through European colonization.[18]Malaysia and Singapore were British possessions, whilst Indonesia was a Dutch colony.[18] European colonists brought their cuisine along with them, with the most obvious impacts in bread, cake, and pastry-making techniques.[18] The pandan plant is believed to be native to the Moluccas islands of Indonesia.[19] The plant is now commonly found throughout Southeast Asia.[19] In Southeast Asian cuisine, the pandan leaf is a favourite flavouring agent used to give off a pleasant aroma, and can be added to various dishes ranging from fragrant coconut rice, traditional cakes, to sweet desserts and drinks.[6]
In 2017, CNN named the pandan cake as the national cake of Singapore and Malaysia.[4] In Singapore pandan cake was popularised by one of the city's most popular bakeries, Bengawan Solo,[15] a cake shop owned by a Singaporean citizen of Indonesian origin.[20]Bengawan Solo and their pandan cakes are especially popular among tourists visiting Singapore, particularly those from Hong Kong and mainland China.[21][22] Other bakeries that carry pandan cake in Singapore include Old Seng Choong.[23] During the 2020 pandemic, there was increased social media interest in a rivalry between these two shops and their pandan cakes.[23]
Green pandan is also used as flavouring and colouring agent in other Dutch-Indonesian cake spekkoek (lapis legit) sold in an Indo (Eurasian) shop in Amsterdam.
According to CNN Indonesia, this cake originated from Indonesia, which can be traced to the cake-making techniques of Dutch colonists in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).[20] The colonial Dutch and Indo peoples combined cake-making techniques from Europe with the available local ingredients like the pandan leaf as flavouring and colouring agents.[6] However, the modern pandan chiffon cake can be more directly traced back to 20th century America.[24]
This cake is also known as pandan cake in Dutch, and is quite popular in the Netherlands due to its historical link to Indonesia.[6] Other than its use in chiffon pandan cake, pandan leaf is also used as green colouring and flavouring in the Dutch-Indonesian favourite pandan spekkoek or lapis legit (layered cake).[25] In recent years, pandan has grown in popularity internationally, especially in the United States, where typical western dishes are now implementing pandan as a flavouring agent and garnish.[21]
Variations
One of the main variations of pandan chiffon cake is the modern versus the traditional pandan chiffon cake.[15]Bengawan Solo, a cake shop in Singapore, is well known for its traditional pandan chiffon cake and its distinctive pandan flavor.[15]Bengawan Solo also makes cakes with chocolate and yuzu flavors, but these cakes do not still contain the same recipe as the original pandan flavor.[15]
Within the Philippines, there is a smaller pandan chiffon cake, the buko pandan mamom.[26] This smaller pandan contains coconut milk and pandan flavors.[26] The recipe features dense and buttery textures, which are typical of Filipino cuisine.[26]
Vietnamese pandan cake
In Vietnam, there is the bánh bò nướng, the honeycomb cake.[27] This cake has coconut and pandan flavors in its recipe.[27] Due to the tapioca starch in the recipe, there is a chewy texture, and the cake itself is completely different from a chiffon cake.[27] When baked, the inside appears like the structure of a honeycomb.[27]
↑Zappi, Daniela (May 2013). Voo, Arthur (ed.). Guides to Gardens by the Bay: Heritage Garden Plants and Recipes. Singapore: Gardens by the Bay (published May 2023). p.67. ISBN978-981-07-6307-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
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