Pandan Cake

Have you ever had these green Vietnamese waffles? They are sooo good, especially when piping hot with a crispy outside and soft, steamy center...Mmm.

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Only recently did I learn why they are green though. :P It's this plant, pandan!

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Well, sometimes not the plant itself. Sometimes it's the plant extract and some green food coloring. :P I bought some from Ranch 99. :)

It smells terrible.  There's alcohol in it, to keep it fresh I guess? Don't do a direct sniff. Waft like a high school chem student!

Unfortunately I do not have a waffle maker, so I thought I'd make a pandan cake instead.  I used this recipe from My Food Trail,  though I definitely whacked my way through it.  I used regular sugar in place of caster sugar, coconut cream and cow milk in place of coconut milk, and a square pan instead of a ring pan. Oh, and I also converted all the gram measurements to tablespoons and such.  A little rounding involved..

I've never made a chiffon type cake before, and I don't think my whipped eggs were quite up to muster.

They were okay, but not fluffy mountains or anything.

The one thing I was really bummed about though was the lack of greenness!

No green. :(

Apparently, my pandan essence didn't have enough food coloring in it. I should have added my own.

The taste, however, was pretty delicious! It was kinda like a fluffy spongecake (though probably not as fluffy as it could have been), and the coconut/pandan flavor came out nicely.

Still-frozen cool hwip on top.

I still prefer waffles, but this cake wasn't so bad! Definitely needs to be green next time though.

Have you had pandan flavored food before? Was it greeeeeen?