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Singapore, June 20, 2010- When Ms Jessica Kok opened the cake shop Yummi Chiffon in 2007, she often had customers asking for chiffon cake in the “original flavour”. And the request would stump her. Ms Kok, a Singaporean in her early 40s, says: “I started off selling just three chiffon cake flavours – orange, banana and chocolate, and it took me a while to realise that for many Singaporeans, pandan chiffon cake is their idea of real, original chiffon cake.” She quickly rolled out a pandan version and it has been a top-selling item at her six outlets, including a shop in Tanjong Pagar. Recently, more bakeries have been on a charm offensive to win themselves new fans with the evergreen confection. Polar Puffs & Cakes, which is better known for curry puffs and sugar roll cakes, added pandan chiffon cake to its list of offerings in January. Bakery chain PrimaDeli launched an improved version of its pandan cake last month. It touts the use of better-quality ingredients such as premium grade flour, so that the cake has a finer texture. The pandan chiffon cake craze has even spread to Hong Kong. Hong Kong celebrities such as Andy Lau are candid about their love for Singapore’s pandan cake and Hong Kong tourists here often cart home boxes of the “green cake”, as it is nicknamed in Hong Kong. Seizing upon the popularity of pandan cake in Hong Kong, Singaporean coffee and toast chain, Toast Box, began selling pandan chiffon cake exclusively at its outlets in Hong Kong from 2008. Toast Box, which is part of the BreadTalk Group, charges HK$98 (S$17.80) for a whole pandan cake. Sales of its pandan cake make up over 50 per cent of total cake sales for its five stores in Hong Kong. Ms Joyce Koh, BreadTalk Group’s senior vice-president of brand development, says the pandan chiffon cake is not sold in Toast Box shops here because it wants to focus on colonial-style tea cakes. Last November, popular Hong Kong pastry chain, Maxim’s Cakes, also jumped on the bandwagon, selling pandan cake for HK$88 at its over 160 stores. Its assistant public relations manager, Mr Jannus Cheung, says the bakery chain uses pandan leaves from Thailand to flavour its cake. Demand for the pillowy confection remains unabated. Bakery chain Bengawan Solo, for one, says sales of its pandan chiffon cake – its best-selling cake – have not dipped in recent months despite more players vying for a slice of the business. It sells more than 1,000 pandan chiffon cakes every day and almost 60 per cent of this is sold over the counters in its three airport shops. An average of three deliveries must be made every day from the central kitchen in Woodlands Link to replenish the stock at the airport outlets. For Polar Puffs & Cakes, sales of pandan cake at its four airport shops were so encouraging that the chain decided to roll it out at its stores island-wide from early this month. At PrimaDeli, its pandan chiffon cake sales have grown by eight times since the premium version debuted. Confectionery Pine Garden’s Cake in Ang Mo Kio has also seen sales of its pandan cake increase by about 30 per cent in the last two years. Indeed, the pandan chiffon cake from each bakery has its own appeal. Mr Brian Koh, 37, a bank executive, enjoys the low fat, low sugar version from Yummi Chiffon. He says: “I have its pandan chiffon cake every two days for breakfast. I love how it does not taste oily, and the coconut bits in the cake make it interesting.” For Ms Ad Wong, 45, a retail executive assistant, it is the fluffy and not-too-sweet pandan chiffon cake from AsianBakes at The Central that lures her back every fortnight. Chiffon cake, a cross between sponge cake and butter cake, was reportedly invented in the United States in the 1920s. It became popular from the 1940s after food company General Mills bought the recipe from its inventor, an insurance salesman, and used the cake to promote the flour brand Softasilk. Food writer and consultant Christopher Tan, 37, says: “Like many early dishes that blend Western and Asian influences, the roots of pandan chiffon cake are largely lost to us. “The earliest Singaporean recipe for pandan chiffon that I have been able to trace is from a 1979 desserts cookbook, but its inclusion suggests that it was already a popular local item by then.” He adds that pandan chiffon cake has been around in the Philippines and Vietnam too. He says: “So within some 30 years of its creation, the recipe must have already travelled to Asia and become Asianised by the addition of pandan juice.” Mrs Anastasia Liew, 63, founder of Bengawan Solo, says she learnt to make pandan chiffon cake in Indonesia, where she grew up. By 1975, she was selling them from her Marine Parade flat and also supplying them to a cake counter at a now-defunct department store in Lucky Plaza. She says: “I decided to sell pandan chiffon cake because few other cake shops were selling it. “People would make it at home but bakeries avoided it probably because it is time-consuming to extract pandan juice, which is needed to make the cake.” Businessman Melvin Ng, 32, who buys Bengawan Solo’s pandan chiffon cake every fortnight, says: “I have been eating pandan chiffon cake since I was in secondary school and I never grow sick of it. One bite of the soft, fragrant cake and it brings me back to the good old days.”
Related links:
Pandan Chiffon Cake recipe
The best pandan chiffon cake
