Pandan Cupcakes

By Fongolicious - November 07, 2012

After reading Much a Munch’s recent blog post – I got inspired. I've never cooked with Pandan flavouring before, but love the unique fragrance.

This weekend I went past the Asian grocery store and combed the isles looking for some sort of Pandan flavouring. I found Pandan extract. A little vial size container, only 90 cents (AUD). The liquid is thick, dark green and smells fantastic! Hey it’s only 90 c why not! After buying it, I did a bit more research on how to use it. Some people get the leaves and boil it down. Others have Pandan syrup. I combined a few different recipes, but mainly based on this one.

The cupcakes turned out moist and tasty, in good cupcake fashion. The cakes themselves were brilliant green! As my boss described it – green tree frog, green. I garnished with desiccated coconut coloured with green food colouring.

Ingredients
Cupcakes
2 cups plain flour (minus 4 tblspn)
3 tspn Pandan extract
2 tspn baking powder
1/8 tspn baking soda
140g butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 tspn vanilla extract
1/2 tspn coconut essence
3/4 cup milk

Frosting
115g butter, softened
1/2 cup icing sugar mixture
1 1/2 tblspn condensed milk
1/2 tspn coconut essence
1/2 tspn vanilla essence
Juice of half a lime
Handful of desiccated coconut, mixed with a few drops of green food colouring

Method
Cupcakes
1. Preheat the oven to 175C degrees. Line 15 to 18 muffin cups with liners.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. Set aside.

3. With a mixer, beat the butter and sugar until soft and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Then beat in the vanilla & Pandan.

4. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Mix until just combined.

5. Spoon batter evenly into prepared muffin cups, filling until about 2/3 full. Bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the cupcakes becomes clean. Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan and let cool completely before frosting.

Frosting
1. Beat together butter and icing sugar. Add condensed milk, essences and juice. Taste to ensure the right sweetness and flavour and adjust accordingly.

2. Frost cupcakes when cooled and garnish.