Rainbow Pandan Chiffon Cake

I was looking for a cake to thank my son's school principal who had been very kind to us when we most needed help (like a rainbow when we most needed it). It was during our short vacation that the sudden inspiration came to me. Since the chiffon tin was a doughnut shape, it was perfect for making two rainbows! The rainbow chiffon cake was the perfect idea for thanking her!

As an experiment, I did not prebake the rainbow patterns batter for 1.5 min (and partly because I was in a rush). The consistency for all the colours were right except for green because at this time, I did not yet have wilton green colour; so I just mixed wilton blue and yellow to get the shade of green but did not correct for the increase in volume. As you can see, the green batter slightly runny compared to the rest of the colours. But overall, the rainbow was still cheery ^_^ and the principal was very happy to have received the pretty cake!

The recipe is below, but we have since optimized the recipe for patterning in future posts (stay tuned!) and have since purchased the whole set of wilton colours. The next rainbow cake will be one with all 6 colours!

5 Egg Yolks
20g Caster Sugar
80ml Fresh Milk (subtract 5 ml for colouring so I added 75 ml)
40ml Corn Oil
80g Cake Flour
1/2 tsp strawberry paste and wilton colours (blue, yellow).
1 tsp pandan paste for main batter

Meringue Batter:
5 Egg Whites
80g Caster Sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar

Method:-
1. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till creamy before stirring in oil and milk.
2. Next add in sieved flour and whisk till no trace of flour found.
3. Take 2 tsp of egg yolk batter out for each colour and mix in colour. Scoop over 4 tbsp of meringue and quickly but gently fold it in till well-combined (I still love Cynthia’s handfolding method).
4. Use a wilton 230 tip to pipe designs on base of chiffon tin.
5. Bake for 1.5 min (I omitted this step today as an experiment). Results were good for all colours except green (I don’t have green wilton so I mixed blue and yellow but didn’t correct for volume.. ahh).
6. Add 1 tsp pandan paste to the rest of the egg yolk batter. Mix well and gently fold in the rest of the meringue. Gently pour in the rest of the batter over the rainbow patterns.
6. Bake the cake in preheated 160°C oven for 50 minutes (my oven is 5-10 deg below settings so maybe 45 min is sufficient).
7. Invert when cake is removed from oven and unmould when cake is cool.

With love,
Susanne