Pandan Swiss Roll & Floral Pandan Swiss Roll

  

The pandan or screwpine plant is used widely in South Asia and Southeast Asia cooking mainly as flavouring and colouring. As such, we can find lots of pandan plants being grown in many houses in the ground or in pots so that they are easily available when required.

The leaves are bruised and added to rice which is being cooked to enhance the fragrance of the rice for nasi lemak. These bruised leaves are also added to sweet dessert soup like red beans soup, green bean soup and bubur cha cha for the sweet smell. The leaves are also blended with water for the green colour and fragrance in baking and making of cakes and traditional kuih like pandan swiss roll, pandan sponge cake, pandan layer cake, seri muka/pulut kaya, kuih koo, kuih talam, kuih kosui, ondeh-ondeh and many more. Besides these, the leaves are used as wraps for deep-frying, grilling, barbecuing or steaming chicken, meat and fish, for example, pandan chicken. Lastly, we can also use the pandan leaves to make pandan-lemongrass tea.

I grow many pandan plants in my garden as I use them a lot in my cooking and baking. The Swiss roll is one of the cakes in which I use the pandan juice. Sometimes I just make basic plain Pandan Swiss Roll but at other times, I like to draw patterns to enhance the beauty of my Swiss rolls.

Ingredients:

For the Pattern:
10 g egg white
10 g unsalted butter
10 g icing sugar
5 g cake flour
5 g dark cocoa powder

For the Meringue:
4 egg whites, Grade B
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
60 g castor sugar

For the Batter:
4 egg yolks, Grade B
20 g castor sugar
1/4 tsp salt
45 g oil (I use corn oil)
40 g pandan juice from 12 pandan leaves + water
1 tsp vanilla essence
65 g cake flour
1 tbsp milk powder

For the Filling:
130 g whipping cream
20 g powdered sugar


Method:

Drawing on the Swiss roll:

• Making the batter for the pattern:
• Add the egg white into a bowl.
• Add the butter to the bowl.
• Add sugar to the bowl.
• Add flour and cocoa powder to the bowl.
• Mix all the ingredients until there are no lumps.
• Put the pattern batter into a piping bag.
• Tie up the piping bag with a rubber band.
• Set it aside.
• Choose a pattern that you like.
• Place the pattern on your baking tray.
• Place a piece of parchment paper over the pattern.
• Secure the parchment paper to the baking tray with a paper/cellophane tape.
• Cut off the tip of the piping bag.
• Use the tip of the piping bag to trace the pattern onto the parchment paper.
• Once done, remove the paper/cellophane tape and the pattern below the parchment paper from the baking tray.
• Place the parchment paper on the baking tray into the freezer.
• Take out the baking tray with the parchment paper from the freezer when you are about to pour your Swiss roll batter into it.

Making the Swiss Roll Batter:

• Put a tray of hot water into the oven. Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Centigrade. (Adjust according to your oven.)

• Line a rectangular pan (10 inch x 14 inch) with a good quality parchment paper. (This is to ensure that the cake will not stick to the parchment paper.)

• In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg white with a hand mixer over low speed. (Please ensure that your bowl and beaters are dry and have no traces of oil otherwise the egg white will not rise.)

• Once large bubbles are formed, add the cream of tartar.

• Whisk till small bubbles are formed.

• Add sugar gradually in 3 batches.

• Whisk the egg white till stiff peak.

• Once stiff peak is achieved, set the meringue aside.

• In another mixing bowl, add in the egg yolks, sugar and salt. Whisk until they are creamy.

• Add the oil and continue to mix until they are well combined.

• Add the pandan juice and vanilla essence. Whisk to mix them well.

• Sieve the cake flour and milk powder into the egg yolk mixture. Mix until well combined and the batter is smooth.

• Take 1/3 of the meringue and add to the batter. Use the whisk to mix the meringue with the batter gently, taking care not to deflate the meringue.

• Add another third of the meringue into the batter. Gently mix it with the batter.

• Add the remaining meringue and gently fold it into the batter using a spatula.

• Pour the batter into the baking pan and spread it evenly with a spatula.

• Drop the pan onto the counter-top from about 1 foot high to break out any large bubbles. Repeat this 2 to 3 times.

• Bake in the oven at 160 deg C for 20 minutes until the cake surface is golden brown. Do not over bake or the cake will crack when you roll it later.

• Once the cake has baked, remove the pan from the oven.

• Drop the pan from 1 foot high onto the counter-top to prevent shrinkage of the cake.

• Remove the cake from the pan onto a wire rack.

• Put another sheet of parchment paper on the cake and invert it to remove the parchment paper below.

• Let the cake cool down completely on the wire rack.

• While waiting for the cake to cool down, whip the cream with the powdered sugar till it is stiff. (Test for sweetness. Add more sugar if the cream is not sweet enough for you.)

Filling and Rolling Up the Swiss Roll:

• Cut 3 shallow slits (about 1 foot apart) across the cake at the end from which you will start rolling the cake. (This is to aid in the rolling of the cake i.e. to ensure that it does not crack when you start rolling it.)

• Spread the cream evenly on the cake.

• Roll the cake and wrap it in the parchment paper. Put the roll into a plastic bag or cling wrap it to prevent dryness.

• Keep the roll in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

• After 3 hours, remove cake from the refrigerator.

• Remove the plastic bag or cling wrap and parchment paper and slice the roll.

• Serve chilled.