Pandan Ogura Cake (香兰相思蛋糕)

During the last bloggers' gathering, we discuss about this 相思蛋糕 (or known as Ogura cake). Then Rei started baking this, and shared some with me. It was so good I had a few slices at one go! The cake was really light and airy. I also saw many Malaysian and Singapore bakers attempted this cake and they looked really good. You can read more background of this cake from Corner Cafe. If you do a search, you can actually find many recipes now.

Finally, I decided to try this cake since I wanted to use up my eggs. I adapted the recipe from Honey Bee Sweets. After baking, then I saw Sonia's post on her experiences on this "touchy" cake. I'll share my notes below.

Recipe for Pandan Ogura Cake  (香兰相思蛋糕), adapted from Honey Bee Sweets.
Makes a 8" x 8" cake (I used 7" x 7" but overflowed)

Ingredients:

Egg Yolk Batter
50g Vegetable oil
80g Coconut pandan mixture (I used 10g Pandan extract + 70g coconut milk)
1/4 tsp salt
100g egg yolk (approx. 6 eggs since my whole egg without shells weigh 45g)
1 whole egg
65g Top flour

Egg White Batter
200g egg white (approx. 7 eggs)
70g caster sugar
1 tbsp corn flour

Method:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks, whole egg, oil, salt, coconut pandan milk mixture together till well combined.
2. Sift in the flour and mix well untill no visible lumps. (set aside and cover)
3. Line a 8"x8" square cake pan.
4. In a mixer bowl, add in the egg white and beat till foamy.
5. Gradually add in the sugar mixed with the corn flour and continue beating till almost stiff peaks.
6. Gently fold in the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture in 3 separate portions.
7. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake in the preheated oven of 160C for 1 hour in water bath.
8. Remove from the oven and let it cool on a rack upside down for 15 mins.
9. Remove the cake from the pan and continue to let it cool.

Notes:

• I used a 7"x7" cake pan and the batter was already close to the rim. Probably because I used 7 eggs, which weigh about 220g egg whites.
• I had overbeaten the egg whites and found it difficult to fold into the liquid mixture. In doing so, I could have deflated the whites, which explained why the holes in the cake was not uniform.
• I let the cake cooled in the pan. After removing the pan, it caused a dent on the bottom.

I would consider this cake not very successful for me since I didn't get the correct texture due to my egg whites. After taken Rei's cake, I already had a "baselined" of how and what it should be. Nevertheless, this recipe is still good and the cake was really soft and light. You can refer to Sonia's thorough write up on this cake. I will probably use hers for other flavours the next round.

I sandwiched my Pandan Ogura Cake with homemade gula melaka kaya. I adapted this recipe from Kitchen Tigress.

Recipe for Gula Melaka Kaya (Palm Sugar Coconut Egg Jam), adapted from Kitchen Tigress.

Makes 1 cup (approx. 200g)

Ingredients:

45g Gula Melaka, chopped

30g Sugar

200g Coconut cream (I used Kara)

4 Pandan leaves (I omitted this)

4 Egg yolks (the yolks I had was small, probably will use 5 next time)

Method:

1. Cook gula melaka, sugar and coconut cream in a pot over medium heat. Bring it to a gentle simmer.
2. Slowly stir half of the coconut mixture into the egg yolks. Mix well.
3. Pour the egg mixture back into the remaining coconut mixture in the pot.
4. Continue stirring until it thickens.'
5. Reduce the heat to low and stir till the mixture coats a spoon thickly.
6. Discard the pandan leaves if using.
7. Let it cool completely before bottling, then refrigerate.
8. Use it to spread on your Ogura cake. Enjoy!

Note:

• The coconut jam was a lumpy after it cooled down. I sieved it to get a smooth texture.