Pandan cakes are made from the pandan plant. The green colour may be natural or enhanced with food colouring. Many pandan cakes are plain, dry sponge but this birthday cake was different. As you see it has a moist edging like a blancmange.
The covering was solid enough for a candle to be placed on top. The cake came with a small chocolate oval decoration.
It was served to a group of members and visitors at a meeting of Toastmasters International in Toa Payoh. This group meets at either the HDB hub (an easily found skyscraper a short distance from the Toa Payoh MRT (Mass Transit) railway station.
Many of the Singapore groups serve a birthday cake to members who have a meeting that month or fortnight or week, depending how often the group meets. A second popular location for meetings is the Orange Tee building. This is a lot easier to find if you recall that is is facing the public swimming pool, because when you ask the way, more people can direct you to the swimming pool.
One group I visited had found that with only one meeting a month, they almost always had a member with a birthday. Sometimes two or three members had a birthday the same month, if a club had a membership of twenty to sixty.
The cake was brought out, happy birthday was sung, and the cake was divided into sufficient pieces for everybody.
If you are all alone on your birthday, as is often the case with expats abroad, if your partner is travelling, join a Toastmasters club - one where they celebrate birthdays.
You might be concerned not to reveal your birthday or a member's birthday to strangers - even if you trusted the entire group, the photo may be used on social media. In that case, you can simply celebrate birthdays of people who have a birthday that month.
I was asked by somebody, Is your birthday actually today? On another occasion, a friend in Asia wanted to know my birthday so she could do my horoscope.
So plan your answer.
In any case, even if it's not known that it's your birthday, you will get a piece of cake!
Apart from the security issue of revealing somebody's birthday, clubs are divided on celebrating brithdays. Soem club committee members don't want the extra expense of providing a cake. They argue that celebrating a birthday has nothing to do with the purpose of the club.
Other clubs feel that it makes members feel welcomed. One of the policies recommended by club advisers called in to help clubs with dwindling membership, is to have parties at Christmas and on other occasions, and to meet evey month or week outside the usual meeing for a lunch or dinner or coffee, or a sporting activity or other social event, just to increase the feeling of belonging and commitment to the club and members.
To Singaporeans a pandan cake is pretty normal. However, to me as a person brought up in Briatin, where an iced heavy fruit cake is the standard, green pandan brithday cake is a novelty, a welcome surprise.
The covering was solid enough for a candle to be placed on top. The cake came with a small chocolate oval decoration.
It was served to a group of members and visitors at a meeting of Toastmasters International in Toa Payoh. This group meets at either the HDB hub (an easily found skyscraper a short distance from the Toa Payoh MRT (Mass Transit) railway station.
Many of the Singapore groups serve a birthday cake to members who have a meeting that month or fortnight or week, depending how often the group meets. A second popular location for meetings is the Orange Tee building. This is a lot easier to find if you recall that is is facing the public swimming pool, because when you ask the way, more people can direct you to the swimming pool.
The cake was brought out, happy birthday was sung, and the cake was divided into sufficient pieces for everybody.
If you are all alone on your birthday, as is often the case with expats abroad, if your partner is travelling, join a Toastmasters club - one where they celebrate birthdays.
You might be concerned not to reveal your birthday or a member's birthday to strangers - even if you trusted the entire group, the photo may be used on social media. In that case, you can simply celebrate birthdays of people who have a birthday that month.
I was asked by somebody, Is your birthday actually today? On another occasion, a friend in Asia wanted to know my birthday so she could do my horoscope.
So plan your answer.
In any case, even if it's not known that it's your birthday, you will get a piece of cake!
Apart from the security issue of revealing somebody's birthday, clubs are divided on celebrating brithdays. Soem club committee members don't want the extra expense of providing a cake. They argue that celebrating a birthday has nothing to do with the purpose of the club.
Other clubs feel that it makes members feel welcomed. One of the policies recommended by club advisers called in to help clubs with dwindling membership, is to have parties at Christmas and on other occasions, and to meet evey month or week outside the usual meeing for a lunch or dinner or coffee, or a sporting activity or other social event, just to increase the feeling of belonging and commitment to the club and members.
To Singaporeans a pandan cake is pretty normal. However, to me as a person brought up in Briatin, where an iced heavy fruit cake is the standard, green pandan brithday cake is a novelty, a welcome surprise.
