BK flew into Houston en route to Boston so that we can celebrate his birthday together.
I decided to bake him a cake. The last time I baked him a birthday cake was when we were just great buddies (… and we still are) before we decided to commit ourselves to this relationship. I remembered then I had to buy an oven, basic tools and necessary ingredients to make a rich chocolate cake ~ with a gift hidden inside the cake. My family never owned a working oven, or rather never utilise the oven in sight, it was just a fixture in the kitchen ~ in my memories, cakes were steamed and not baked in my home (by mum and they were yummy!). Years later ~ now, I decided to make him a birthday cake again … and I wanted something of local flavour. I decided on Pandan Kayacake, but I couldn’t find some ingredients in Houston, so I replaced with alternative ingredients and estimated the quantity of ingredients needed. From BK, there was really no pressure on me - even though I am soon to graduate from a Baking & Pastry Arts course, even if the cake turned out a disaster, he would have eaten it anyway – and be ever encouraging (… and probably spiced with some harmless sarcasm?).
Pandan Leaves, literally mean fragrant leaves, are commonly found in Singapore and other parts of Asia. In the western world, they are known as screw pine leaves. The liquid from the leaves gives a natural sweet aroma, a distint taste and colours a natural green. In Houston, I found them at Hong Kong market ~ they were not as pretty as I have hoped, more than half needed to be discarded. I believed they were deep frozen and shipped here and the moisture content was greatly reduced. I was still excited to find the leaves though, I wanted pandan paste as a backup but did not find it on time.
Pandan Chiffon Cake is a common cake found in neighbourhood bakeries in Singapore. I love the simplicity and airiness of the cake. Back in Singapore, I have tried in vain to do one successfully – blame it on cake mix with ambiguous instruction, a mixer with low watt, all things else … ok – me etc. Mum couldn’t help me with the recipe – in her era, all ingredients were measured by feel and guts – though she told me it was probably the first cake anyone would do since it was a simple recipe?? Today I am confident of folding in a meringue and mixes just about right and not over mixing the mix. I had 2 recipes – one from a class I had attended in Singapore, and one from a blog … both looked pretty close but not the same. I adapted the method to what I have learnt in class.
The pandan cake turned out nicely – spongy, moist and fluffy … I wasn’t too confident of the kaya cream (which is a coconut-egg cream), I didn’t quite understand why the recipe contained no egg. Anyway, I made not one but two cakes on Thursday but wasn’t too confident to give away the 2nd cake.
We did not celebrate with the cake on Friday – we overslept our afternoon nap after my school and nearly missed our dinner as well – but we did on Saturday and had it for breakfast. BK was amused by the way I decorated the cake with black & white candles, the cake turned out a little strange but delightful – I actually laughed when I looked at the final product with the candles on, while he was sleeping. He knew I always came up with strange taste and stuff.
The pictures painted the story well, no words needed:
And we celebrated with a Birthday song and a cake the usual way – with exceptions – I used a handheld torch to light several candles at one time, the cake looked like it was going up in flame … blowing out 38 candles took him some effort just as much effort as I had to use to arrange 38 candles in an appealing fashion … Blew out the last candle, BK stared at the amount of smoke left lingering above the cake…?
We finished more than half the cake for breakfast on Saturday … the kaya cream would be better with more jelly powder or gelatin added. Knowing what went into making the cream stopped me from enjoying the cake as much and I stopped him from eating more of the cream … oops… hee. By Sunday, I was to slice away all the kaya cream custard from the remaining half, and the 2nd cake, we shared a plate of coconut flavoured pandan cake instead ~ no cream, with milo/coffee drink for our breakfast.
“You were from SJC ?” … Err, yes. “You were a prefect?” … Err, yes. My goodness, someone knows me from the crowd. SJC = St Joseph’s Convent, the secondary or middle/high school I attended 20 years ago. She is Lilian, the younger sis of my ex-classmate Vivian, and 2 years my junior in school. “You lost weight? … you were from canoeing right?” … I clarified I only lost weight when I came to Houston, never really lost my muscle mass from canoeing days though I have shrunk indeed, I am the same height as she last knew me in secondary school ;[ Lilian is now in her 36 weeks of pregnancy and may deliver any time. "Vivian will be here in 2 week's time..." Wow fancy meeting an ex-classmate in Houston, when we didn't even bump into each other in Singapore. So Singapore is not that small after all ;p But it is a small world.
