Pandan cake facts for kids
Indonesian pandan cake
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| Alternative names | Pandan chiffon cake |
|---|---|
| Type | Cake |
| Region or state | Southeast Asia |
| Associated national cuisine | Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore |
| Main ingredients | Juice of pandan leaves or Pandanus extract, flour, eggs, sugar, butter or margarine |
Pandan cake is a yummy, light, and fluffy cake that is usually green. It gets its special flavour and colour from the juice of pandan leaves.
This cake is also known as pandan chiffon. It's super popular in many countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand. You can also find it in the Netherlands, especially among people with ties to Indonesia. While it's similar to the buko pandan cake from the Philippines, pandan cake doesn't use coconut.
Contents
What's in a Pandan Cake?
Pandan cake uses common ingredients found in most cakes, like flour, eggs, butter (or margarine), and sugar. But the special ingredient that makes it unique is the pandan leaf. This leaf gives the cake its distinct green colour and amazing flavour.
The cake gets its light green colour from something called chlorophyll, which is the natural green stuff in the pandan leaves. Sometimes, a little green food colouring is added to make the colour even brighter. Not all pandan cakes are made with leaf juice; some use pandan extract for flavour. If extract is used, green colouring is only added if people want the cake to be green.
The original pandan cake, popular in Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Singapore, is a soft sponge cake. It's a lot like a light and fluffy chiffon cake, and it usually doesn't have any extra frosting or coating. Other types of cakes might use pandan flavouring, but they are different recipes that just happen to use the same green pandan flavour.
Where Did Pandan Cake Come From?
Cake-making skills came to Southeast Asia because of European countries exploring and settling in the region a long time ago. For example, Indonesia was once a Dutch colony, and Malaysia and Singapore were controlled by the British. These European settlers brought their cooking styles, including how to make bread, cakes, and pastries.
In Southeast Asian cooking, the pandan leaf is a favourite ingredient. It's used to give a lovely smell and taste to many dishes, from fragrant coconut rice to traditional cakes and sweet desserts. The pandan-flavoured cake was created when European cake-making methods were combined with local ingredients like the pandan leaf.
In 2017, CNN called pandan cake the national cake of Singapore and Malaysia. This made some people in Indonesia say that pandan cake, known there as kue bolu pandan, actually came from Indonesia. In Singapore, pandan cake became very popular thanks to a famous bakery called Bengawan Solo. This bakery was started by a Singaporean person who had Indonesian family roots.
According to CNN Indonesia, this cake started in Indonesia. This is because Dutch settlers in the Dutch East Indies (which is now Indonesia) taught their cake-making skills. The Dutch and Indo people (who have both European and Indonesian heritage) mixed European cake techniques with local ingredients like the pandan leaf for flavour and colour. This cake is also known as pandan cake in Dutch, and it's quite popular in the Netherlands because of its history with Indonesia. Besides chiffon pandan cake, pandan leaf is also used in another popular Dutch-Indonesian cake called pandan spekkoek or lapis legit (a layered cake). This shows how important pandan leaf is in Dutch-Indonesian baking.
How Pandan Cake is Called in Different Languages
- Indonesian: bolu pandan
- Malaysian: kek pandan
- Dutch: pandan cake
- Khmer: Num Sleok Touy
- Vietnamese: Bánh pho sĩ, "bánh lá dứa"
- Cantonese: Chinese: 班蘭蛋糕; Cantonese Yale: baan1 laan4 daan6 gou1
- Thai: เค้กใบเตย
See also
In Spanish: Pastel de pandano para niños
