Pandan Swiss Roll

Pandan are bright green leaves, mostly used in Asian cooking. In Malaysia, where I was just on holiday with my family, they have these amazing pandan swiss rolls. We sneakily stowed away some pandan coconut essence into our luggage that we’d bought from the local supermarket so we could try to recreate it. I have absolutely no idea where you’d buy it from in England, but a large Asian supermarket is probably your best bet. I didn’t have a recipe for this so I just followed a simple swiss roll one and added the essence and it seemed to work alright! Pandan has a really unusual flavour, it’s kind of hard to describe but it’s often teamed with coconut so I suppose it’s kind of…coconutty…

Ingredients

4 eggs

100g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

100g self-raising flour

Pandan essence

For Icing

Butter

Cream Cheese

Icing sugar

Pandan essence

Line a 33 x 23 cm swiss roll tin with baking parchment. Preheat the oven to 200⁰C.

Whisk the eggs and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and frothy.

Add the pandan essence. I added two big blobs but it depends how pandany you want it.

Carefully sift the flour in and fold in gently using a spatula.

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 10 minutes or until springy to the touch

While the cake is in the oven prepare a sheet of baking parchment slightly larger than the cake and sprinkle some caster sugar all over it. When the cake is baked turn it out quickly onto the sugared paper and remove the lining sheet from the bottom of the cake.

Trim the edges of the sponge then make a scoring mark about 3cm in from one of the edges.

Roll the cake up with the paper still inside from the scored end and leave to cool in a roll (This prevents the sponge from cracking.)

While the cake is cooling make the filling. You can fill it with anything you like really, and the proper authentic pandan cakes are usually filled with fresh cream. I didn’t have any fresh cream knocking about the fridge though so I just made a simple buttercream instead. Cream some butter and cream cheese together and sift some icing sugar until the mixture is smooth but holds its shape. Add a small blob of pandan essence to give it the flavour and colour.

When the cake is completely cool very carefully unroll it.

Spread the icing all the way along.

Roll the cake back up from the scored end, this time removing the outer paper as you go. Sprinkle a little more sugar on the outside if needed. Now, for some reason the outer browny layer of my cake peeled off with the paper. Don’t ask me why, but it doesn’t really matter because I think the cake looks better green anyway!

This is best eaten on the day and served with a cup of Chinese tea.