Pandan Cake

Pandan (Screwpine Leaves) Cake

It has been called the Asian Vanilla, the green leaves of the screwpine emits a sweet flavour, mostly used in Asian desserts or even some savoury dishes. It grows in a low bush in tropical and subtropical weather ( here's more on pandan  on wikipedia).

Most households in Malaysia will have a pandan bush as it grows almost unassisted without much fuss.

The Malays use them to flavour their Nasi Lemak, Sweets and the perennial favourite the KEK Pandan or Pandan Cake.

In case you do not have access to pandan leaves you may used pandan flavouring.

Ingredients

250 gms butter (softened to room temp)

150 gms castor sugar

4 eggs

60 ml coconut cream with a pinch of salt

10-15 pandan leaves blended with 1/2 cup water (strained and discard pulp)

2-3 drops green coloring

30g coconut flakes

240 gm self raising flour

1 tsp vanilla essence

Method

Oil/butter then place baking paper on a 9 inch baking pan. Pre heat oven to 

170 C.

Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add eggs one by one and mix well each 

time. Add vanilla essence, coconut flakes and green colouring.

Add pandan juice to the coconut cream. 

Fold in flour and the coconut cream alternately mixing well each time.  Pour 

into pan and bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in the centre comes 

out clean.

Dust with icing sugar for decoration.

Tepung Pelita

Yes I admit, I have been slacking off...have not been updating my blog much. So here  I am halfway into the most Holy month in the Hijri Calender; Ramadhan and I must have thought about an old favorite of my late father's. He loves to have this dessert for breaking of fast or known as iftar. It's a 2 layered pudding, with the bottom half flavored with pandan leaves topped with the creaminess of lightly salted of coconut milk. This dessert is easy to make but the tricky part may be fashioning the banana leaf casing.

I could use a ramekin dish but trust me you don't get the same flavour and aroma from the banana leaf. So I have actually created a pictorial on how to create this simple origami. Before you set off to do this, the banana leaf needs to be softened (so they don't break when you fold them) by blanching it in hot water or leave in the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes or so. Another method is to leave it in the hot sun or use the BBQ grill.

Now for the recipe.

For the bottom layer:

1 cup rice flour

1/2 cup sugar

4 cups water

4 pandan leaves blended with 1 cup water

Mix flour, water, sugar and pandan extract until well blended.

Cook over medium heat and stir constantly until the mixture thickens and shiny. Remove from heat and you can spoon mixture into the banana leaf casing. There is a reason why we spoon the mixture while it is still hot. See note*

*Optional: 

The traditional recipe is quite sweet as 1/2 tsp of sugar is add to each casing before adding the bottom layer. Hence a hot mixture will melt the sugar.

Top Layer:

1/4 cup rice flour 

2 cups coconut milk (I use Kara brand)

pinch of salt

Mix flour and coconut milk and cook over medium heat and stir until mixture thickens.

Spoon the coconut mix above the pandan layer that has now set..

Let cool and store in the fridge to chill.

Enjoy your iftar or Selamat Berbuka Puasa ! 

Buah Melaka (Glutinous Pandan Flavoured Balls)

This is another Malaysian favorite for tea time. My late father used to love this and mum always makes them using the pandan leaves from the backyard for that lovely aromatic flavour and the lovely green colour. Buah Melaka gets its name from the sweet palm sugar also known as Gula Melaka that fills the center when you bite into this treat. You can easily get  palm sugar from any Asian grocer. This dessert is also known as Onde Onde but dont ask me why it is named so. 

Ingredients:

250 g Glutinous Rice Flour
200 ml Pandan Juice (see note)
150 g  Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar), finely chopped
100 g dessicated coconut
A Pinch Of Salt

METHOD:

In a large bowl, combine the glutinous rice flour with Pandan juice and knead lightly. 

Mix the coconut with a pinch of salt and steam for about 2 – 3 minutes and let it cool completely.

Bring a pot of water to boil. Pinch a small piece of dough (about 15 g each) and flatten lightly. Fill the center of the dough with palm sugar. Roll them in your palm to form a smooth ball and cook the glutinous rice balls in the boiling water. When the rice balls float to the surface, remove them with a slotted spoon and shake off the excess water.

Coat the rice balls with the coconut and serve immediately.

Pandan Juice:

 Blend 10 Pandan leaves with 220 ml water and sieve through muslin cloth to obtain the clear juice.

Bubur Pulut Hitam (Sticky Rice Pudding)

Talk about comfort food, this would rank in my top ten dessert, maybe because mum used to make this all the time. Each bite would remind me of warm childhood memories, and how blessed we all are with His Mercy and Bounty.

Best of all, its sooo easy to make, although you would need to have pandan(screwpine) leaves. And if you didnt have any fresh ones like what I have in the backyard, chances are you can easily source them frozen from any Asian grocer, where you will be getting the black glutinous rice anyway. Just in case you are wondering, this black variety of rice is unmilled hence the colour remains black or deep purple.

FYI, Glutinous rice does not contain dietary gluten (i.e. does not contain glutenin and gliadin), and thus should be safe for gluten-free diets.(Source: Wikipedia)

Recipe

1 cup black Glutinous rice
4 cups water or more
1 pandan leave (knotted)
half cup sugar

Topping
Coconut cream
Pinch of salt

Tip: Before boiling the rice, soaking it in water will allow any grits to float to water surface, and you can easily skim them off. Leave to soak for 10-20 minutes to reduce cooking time. (if you're in hurry, you can skip this step)

Add rice & pandan leave into a pot of water and simmer on low heat until the rice is soft and a pudding like consistency is achieved. Add sugar and stir.

Top with coconut cream with a pinch of salt, preferably chilled.

Enjoy!