Black Sesame Paste Chiffon and Pandan Chiffon

School holiday has finally arrived...a much awaited one. Funny how it sounds like school holidays are like my personal break times. :)) No early mornings and chauffeuring for a week is indeed a nice break. Anyway, I am looking forward to have some time to bake moon cakes which has been on my mind for the past week. :P Plus a good friend will be dropping by my place for a visit this week....some quality "girly" time, lol! Hopefully more will come end of the week as well, fingers crossed. :)

Today will be posting 2 chiffon recipes which I find them pretty yummy. :) First up is Black Sesame Paste Chiffon Cake. Notice I said "paste" because I didn't use black sesame powder for this recipe, simple as that. My family has been helping me get black sesame paste from Taiwan since its quite $$$ here in Singapore.

I chance upon the recipe from 我的厨房乐园, which I was pretty intrigued by the usage of coconut milk in it. I trust that it'll be very fragrant plus the nutty aroma from the black sesame, should be good! :) And I was glad I did give it a try, thanks neyeeloh! Even my younger daughter whom is not fond of black sesame also gave praises to it. Anyway, here is the modified version of the recipe:

Ingredients for Black Sesame Paste Chiffon Cake: (fills a 21cm or 22cm tube pan)

Egg yolk batter:

5 egg yolks

20g caster sugar (my black sesame paste has some sugar added, so I reduced a little here)

1/4 tsp salt (if you are using box coconut milk, you can reduce it to a pinch)

64g cake flour

60g black sesame paste

1 tsp baking powder

50ml vegetable oil

100ml coconut milk

Egg white batter:

6 egg whites

80g caster sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method:

• For egg yolk batter: In a large mixing bowl, add in egg yolks, caster sugar and salt and beat till it doubles in volume and the sugar has melted. (~4 to 5 minutes)
• Add in black sesame paste, coconut milk and vegetable oil and mix well till combined. Then sift in the cake flour and baking powder into the yolk mixture and stir well till no visible flour.
• Preheat the oven to 175C.
• For egg white batter: In a large mixing bowl, beat the whites and cream of tartar at high speed till foamy. Gradually& slowly add in the caster sugar while its beating. Once the whites reaches stiff peaks, reduce the speed to lowest and let it stir for another 20 sec before switching it off. This step will help stabilize the bubbles.
• In 3 separate portions, fold the whites into the yolk batter. Then pour the batter into the tube pan and bake for 28 to 30 minutes or till the tester comes out clean.
• Once you remove the tube pan from the oven, immediately invert it to let it cool completely before removing the cake out from the pan.

This is actually my 2nd attempt baking a black sesame chiffon cake. The first time was pretty much a failure as the cake was quite dry. :P But this one turned out moist, soft and fluffy with a nice nutty sesame aroma. :) But I have to admit I totally suck at unmoulding chiffon...no matter how many time I did it, it's almost always with parts of it torn. *sigh*

I wonder if I replace the coconut milk with evaporated milk or half and half, will it still taste as good? I guess the only way to find out is to bake it out myself. :P

With the balance of the coconut milk, I decided to bake a Pandan chiffon. This recipe which I came up with was pretty good and I thought why not just post it up to share.

See what I mean about the unmoulding? *sigh sigh* Luckily the cake turns out heavenly soft and very yummy. :) Anyway, here is the recipe I came up with:

Ingredients for Pandan Chiffon Cake: (fills a 23 or 24cm tube pan)

Egg yolk batter:

3 egg yolks

40g caster sugar

1/8 tsp salt

8 pandan leaves, washed and cut into small strips

100ml coconut milk

50ml fresh whole milk

40ml vegetable oil

108g cake flour

Note: Blend the pandan strips together with the coconut milk and milk. Got this tip from Gertrude of Kitchen Snippets. Then sieve the greenish mixture through a fine sieve. Yes, NO pandan extract is needed.

Egg white mixture:

6 egg whites

75g caster sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

The method will be similar to the steps above.

This recipe uses more egg whites and I reduced 1/3 of the coconut milk to using fresh milk. It is still very fragrant but i know it's a much healthier version.

As you can see, the chiffon is really soft and nice. I like it a lot! Will bake with this recipe again next time when I crave for pandan chiffon again. Do try it if you are interested and love pandan chiffon. :)

Got to go folks, hope you have a nice weekend and school holiday break!