Banana pandan chiffon

Breville Smart Oven

My Kitchenaid is finally here! I bought my Breville oven (another post) at the David Jones' EOFY sale and thought about buying a Breville handmixer to replace my cheap UK handmixer that had long given up the ghost. I have been making chiffons for a few years now but have so far relied on my Sunbeam all in one stick blender which includes a whisk. It's always taken me about 20 to 30 minutes to attain stiff peaks, and that's after multiple stops to let the motor cool. Last week after a particularly disastrous pandan chiffon, I decided it was time. The COVID pause was ending and I wouldn't have much chance to bake in the future once I return to campus. Weekends would just be too packed.


To return to the story of my Kitchenaid, the reviews of the handheld Breville weren't good and then I spied the handheld Kitchenaid. After more investigation, I decided that I had finally reached my 40s and deserved a stand mixer, just like my mom had her Moulinex all those years ago. Growing up, I helped her growing up in the kitchen as she made butter cakes and have fond memories. I felt it was finally my turn. I had earned it and I would never have children to watch me in my kitchen with my stand mixer.

My beautiful Kitchenaid in Metallic Nickle

I decided to buy the KSm117. The cheapest price at Myer was for a colour I didn't mind (Medallion Silver). It read "low stock". Later, when I finally paid up (because I had taken too long dawdling and trying to read review after review to convince myself) , I momentarily saw "out of stock." Myer took 4 days to tell me that it was indeed OOS and cancelled my order and refunded me. By then it was July 1st and the EOFY sale was over! I was so upset. I rang Myer and they agreed to honour the price when stocks returned in a month or so but I would have to watch out for it.

I considered buying the lower end model KSM160 where the difference is only the extra scraper beater, which I could buy separately. Depending on the colour chosen, I would actually save money! I found a few potential sites and submitted queries because all were on pre-order. I was about to buy when BK found a  silver colour at Harvey Norman and would get them to price match. I didn't think HN would take it up. I found out that Medallion Silver was a special edition and would never come back. It couldn't be found on the Kitchenaid website either but instead the closest silver was Metallic Nickle, which was a premium colour on the Myer website. HN must have been so desperate they they didn't do their research. They were willing to sell me this colour at Myer's price (and even discounted a further $4 because BK gave them the wrong price!) without checking my Myer invoice! I am so pleased because I didn't have to wait for delivery. By the time I re-checked out my alternate plan, the sites I visited had removed their sales too.

Back to the business at hand. I wanted to re-do my pandan chiffon but also needed to use up my bananas which I had saved to make banana break. I used DGW's banana chiffon recipe. Pandan banana IS a thing, as BananaWithPaws and other bloggers say as they cite Linda Teh as the originator. As I read somewhere that pandan is the Asian vanilla, I swapped the vanilla for pandan paste. I amended DGW's recipe as it came out too dry for some reason (maybe because I was too lazy to mash the banana but let my machine do it). With my extensive chiffon experience, I knew it would be a problem so I had to add more oil. I've also changed the method slightly where I add sugar to the egg white only after beating to soft peaks as DWG's recipe says. I've never really read that properly!

Very slightly deflated top (too moist inside?) but a good rise and shape. No cracks.

Ingredients
6 eggs
25g (for yolks) + 90g (for whites) sugar
180g smashed bananas (about 2 bananas)
60ml oil (increased to 70ml)
½ tsp pandan paste
110g cake flour, sifted
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp cream of tartar (cannot omit, needed to neutralise the baking soda; I used lime juice)

Method
1. Beat eggs and sugar in the smaller bowl at Speed 2, increasing to 4 until paler in colour.
2. Add the oil and beat at Speed 6 until paler in colour.
3. Add in the mashed banana and pandan paste. Stir at Speed 1 or 2 to just combine.
4. Sift in the dry ingredients (sifted cake flour, baking soda, and salt) in 3 batches and use Speed 1 to combine. I did turn it up to Speed 2 to beat the banana slightly.
5. In a very clean big bowl, beat the egg whites increasing from Speed 2 to 4 until opaque. Add the lime juice. Turn up to Speed 6 to beat until soft peaks.
6. Add the sugar in a stream down the side of the bowl, beating at Speed 4. Once combined, return to Speed 6 then 8. (I even turned it up to Speed 10 and the whole process took all of 5 to 7 minutes, AMAZING!)

Rising nicely

7. Watch very carefully as it goes from soft to stiff to over-beaten dry stiff peaks within a space of 10 seconds! I had to stop several times to test and even then, over-beat by 10 seconds (I counted!) and it became lumpy. I now realise I've always over-beaten it. Folding in the meringue, I realised that a dry meringue made it very difficult to fold in.
8. Using the whisk, dollop a third of the meringue into the yolk mixture. Use the whisk to fold in. Follow with the second third of meringue.
9. Finally, return the mixture to the bowl with the remaining third of meringue and use a spatula to carefully fold in and disperse the egg white.
10. Pour into the chiffon tin (no greasing!) and smooth the top. Pour more batter at the edge of the run rather than nearer the centre chimney. Drop the tin on the table top to dispel the big bubbles. Use a spatula to slash the mixture to dispel the smaller bubbles. Finally, smoothen the top slightly.
11. Bake at 160 deg C for 60 minutes, tenting if the top becomes too brown.
12. Once removing from the oven, immediately turn it over so that it doesn't deflate. Let it cool down completely.
13. Remove from the tin by cutting (sorry, there's no other way) out of the tin.

Recipe feedback
- I couldn't really taste the pandan at all but I am wary of putting more otherwise I can noticeably taste the chemical. The green colouring actually made the banana cake look more yellow, so that was a good outcome
- Couldn't taste the baking soda either so I must have sufficiently offset with lime juice
- Cake was very very moist from the addition of the banana and the extra oil. I didn't really mash the banana (left the machine to do it) so it might led to a drier dough (hence my 20ml top up of oil).
- I had to tent halfway as it was turning very born, probably because of the additional sugars in the banana