Pandan Kaya Layer Cake

I used to always get this cake from our local bakery when I was a little kid.  Then it was all forgotten till I recently stumbled upon this recipe.  The method looks pretty tedious but since I really crave for this cake and wanted to see if I could make this, I got myself a store bought sponge cake mix from the Asian Grocery.  Baked it as per the package.  Set it aside. Then went ahead to make the jelly part, which I was hoping should come out good. To assemble it was another task that I have to encounter as I had no idea how to do it but just went with my instinct.  After keeping the cake in the fridge for couple of hours, then it came to getting it out of the pan, I was praying that it has to just pop out of the pan....I run a knife through the sides, turned it onto a plate and walla it just pop right out of the pan. To my surprise when I cut a slice of the cake, it was perfect.  Exactly how I pictured it to be.  Taste wise since I used a store bought sponge mix, it was okay..the next time I would definitely use the recipe below for the sponge cake.


Ingredients

4 large eggs
130gm sugar
100gm flour + 1/2 tsp baking powder, sifted
50gm coconut milk
80gm corn oil
1/2 tsp pandan paste.
Green food colouring

I did not put too much coconut.

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. I used an 8 inch round pan. DO NOT GREASE THE PAN.
• Beat eggs and sugar until thick and pale.
• In a separate bowl, combine coconut milk, pandan paste/green colour and corn oil. Put in sifted flour and mix.
• Put a few table spoonful of beaten eggs into the flour mixture and fold. Repeat 3X.
• Pour the flour into remaining beaten eggs and fold. Take care not to deflate the eggs.
• Pour into prepare mould and bake for 30 minutes.
• Remove cake from mould immediately after baked. Leave to cool (cake will shrink tremendously, but uniformly) and slice into 3 layers. Freeze (air tight and separate layers with baking paper) until use.

Pandan Layer

1. 2 cups water + 200gm sugar. Cook sugar until dissolved. Leave to cool down. Do this in advance.
2. Mix 50gm cornstarch and 1 tsp pandan paste into 150gm coconut milk. Set aside
3. Bring 2 cups water + 1 tbsp agar-agar powder to a simmer.
4. Pour in (2) into (3) and cook until mixture thickens and boils. Remove from heat.
5. Pour (1) into (4) and combine well.

The filling layers could have been thicker but since its first time, I just added little. The next time definitely I am going to add more filling

To assemble

• I used the same size pan that I baked the cake. If u want to assemble it upside down, then put 1/3 of the pandan layer in first, then cake, then another 1/3, then 2nd layer cake and the last 1/3 of pandan layer and last layer of cake.
• If u want to do it upright, then cake in first, then 1/3 pandan, then 2nd cake and pandan and cake again and pandan layer.
• Chill in fridge till cold and set. Decorate with some icing and dessicated coconut.