Dessert 4 U: Pandan Chiffons

Been missing Pandan cakes from S'pore, that's why I've been making them. They are impossible to find over here, even in Box Hill. I went into a Chinese cake shop to ask if they have any, but was met with a blank stare and ,"Would you like taro instead?" So I thought I'll make my own instead.

I've been wanting to try out chiffon cakes for the longest time... Chiffon cakes are daunting; they could sink like quick sand, becoming a dense kueh instead of a tall, fluffy, melt-in-your mouth cake. I really wanted to see if I could succeed in making one. Or two.

The first cake was... alright. It didn't rise up proud and tall, it stopped midway and sank a bit more during cooling. And I did not have a proper chiffon cake pan either, I used a normal cake pan. That chiffon cake pan is so hard to find! I've looked simply everywhere, and not a single store has it. I kept thinking how in S'pore, they were sold everywhere and I didn't even notice... T^T

Anyway. I deduced the problem was either the cake pan trouble, or I did not beat the egg whites enough. Here's the first cake:

It tastes like a chiffon cake, which my family was happy about. Soft and moist with pandan and coconut flavours complementing each other... But after an hour, the cake sank... I was so disappointed.

But I was ready to give it a second go. This time, I placed a tin can in the middle of the normal cake pan so the cake would have a hole in the middle, hahaha. The egg whites were also beaten a lot, to the point where I could left the bowl over my head and the egg whites still remained in the bowl. Very cool =P

It rose more than the first cake. but you can see it sinking in the middle already...