Loving Creations for You: 'Green Monster' Pandan Chiffon Cake for Halloween

This is a cute Green Monster made from Pandan Chiffon Cake! It’s a simple, fun and alternative bake for Halloween-themed kids’ playdate from the usual pumpkin and scary stuff. It's my first cake after the month-long busy photoshoots for the creative chiffons book so I was happy to try something simple and experimental! The eyes are made from pandan and vanilla chiffon cake pops, which were immediately snatched up by the kids! =p The face is made from a 6-inch pandan chiffon cake from a removable base pan. Hope you will enjoy this fun, cute creation! Nom nom nom...

Pandan and Vanilla ‘Eye’ Chiffon pops
1 egg yolks
9 g sugar
15 ml vegetable/corn oil
16 ml coconut milk
3 ml vanilla extract
26 g cake flour, sifted
A pinch of salt
1 ml pandan paste
Charcoal powder

Meringue
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
15g sugar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil, coconut milk, vanilla extract and pandan paste.
3. Add in sieved flour and a pinch of salt and whisk till no trace of flour found.
4. Scoop out 4 tsp batter and add pandan paste, set aside another 4 tsp (plain batter). To the rest of the batter, add ½ charcoal powder (black batter). Mix well.
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
6. Scoop out 8 tbsp meringue for the pandan and plain vanilla batter respectively, and gently fold into the respective batter in 2 additions.
7. To the rest of the meringue, gently fold into the charcoal batter in 2 additions.
8. Scoop the pandan and plain batter into 3 silicone cake pop molds each. Pour the charcoal batter into a baking-paper lined 6-inch tray. Gently tap the mold/tray to remove air bubbles from the batter.
9. Bake the cake pop mold at 160°C for 12 min and the tray for 14 min.
10. Leave to cool on a wire rack and unmould the cake pops by hand when cool. Similarly, peel off the baking paper for the black cake and flip onto a new sheet.
11. Set aside and keep air tight until assembly.

Pandan Chiffon Cake (6-inch tin)
2 egg yolks
13 g sugar
24 g vegetable/corn oil
30ml coconut milk
2 ml vanilla extract
4 ml pandan paste
40g cake flour, sifted
A pinch of salt

Meringue
3 egg whites
30 g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method:
1. Preheat oven at 160°C. Prepare a tray of water under the lowest rack. *I used steam baking and a lower baking temperature from the start to control the temperature rise to be more gradual for baking in a removable base without centre tube.
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil, coconut milk, vanilla extract and pandan paste.
4. Add in sieved flour and salt and whisk till no trace of flour found.
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
6. Fold in the meringue gently into the batter 1/3 at a time.
7. Scoop the batter into the chiffon tin.
8. Gently tap the tin on table 3x to remove air bubbles
9. Bake the cake for 40 min at 150°C (or when skewer comes clean).
10. Invert immediately once out of the oven to cool
11. Unmould by hand after the cake is cool by gently pulling the cake off the sides and bottom of the tin (see Hand Unmoulding video tutorial).

Assembly
1. Use a circle cutter to make the same cut on the pandan and plain cake pops, join them together to form the eyelids and eyeballs, then use a yakult straw to poke through the 2 of them.
2. Use a straw or small circle cutter to cut eyeballs from the charcoal layer cake. Cut a smile by using a large circle cutter to make 2 cuts in the layer cake.
3. I happened to have pink layer cake from a concurrent bake for the tongue, but if you do not have, just use Hawflakes for the tongue.
4. Melt some marshmallows with a spray of water in a microwave and use the marshmallow cream to stick the mouth and eyeballs onto the cakes.