Perfect pandan cake - Singapore's green cake

I changed my mind about pandan cake. I tried a great pandan cake. Moist.

By the time I fetched my phone and took a picture there wasn't much left. I like the pink cake cutting knife. Worth saving to use in your kitchen if you don't already have one. Those holes in the slicer mean it doesn't cling to the cake but cuts through..

 

This cake came from BengawanSolo. 

Where are their branches? All over. Changi airport terminals one, two, three and four, if you are arriving or leaving and want something to eat or take to friends and colleagues. At Nex, Ion, Clementi. See their website. The website also has an interesting article about the founder, a woman from Indonesia who came to Singapore, married, and has been making cakes for thirty years.

What will it cost you? For the circular pandan chiffon cake, regular size, S$15, or just one slice for S$1.50. If you prefer a pandan cheese roll, (spiral like a Swiss roll) the whole cake is $9.50, a slice 1.70. They also make egg tarts at SS1.30 a piece.

(That is Singapore dollars, not American dollars.)

Crazy colour, isn't it! 

They also sell banana cake and egg tarts.

If you are looking for a gift at the airport, I suggest before buying a big one, you try a slice of two or three items to check the taste and quality and pick your favourite.

Pandan cake is one of the national dishes of Singapore and Malaysia. Indonesia alongside was at one time Dutch. Pandan cake is popular in many Asian countries such as the Philippines as well as in Holland especially among the Indonesian community.

Useful Websites

www.bangawansolo.com.sg.outlets

http://www.bengawansolo.com.sg/

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Author and speaker. Gourmet.

Eating On The Move And Providing Food For Club Visitors

I went to a lunch time Toastmasters Meeting at a Financial group in the downtown area. They provided a choice of meats or fish or vegetarian food with a rice pack and vegetables, different for each person. We all chose from a choice of five or six meals. I had chicken, rice, mushrooms and a green vegetable.

Most lunch time meetings I have been to feature heavily on pizzas with vegetarian pizzas.

The evening meetings vary. Some places provide a proper meal, with noodles and meats. Some even have a casserole or two, often sponsored by a member who is in business. Some clubs provide bananas and grapes.

One club as a matter of principle has only 'healthy' food, fruit and nuts, hardly any biscuits and cakes. Bukit Timah Toastmasters.

Singapore is a country with a high rate of diabetes. I am not surprised.  Cakes, biscuits and sweets.

Student groups, supposedly those who are educated, were the worst, all chocolates and biscuits. It's not as if they can't get proper savoury food. Every Community Club has a McDonalds or even an entire food court underneath.

Admittedly, there's a huge amount on the internet condemning processed food. However, even fried chicken seems healthier to me that endless sticky buns and jelly-like sweets and pandan cake.

If you are catering, please provide some fresh fruit, and something which is not all fat, cereal and sugar.

I went to a club last Christmas for a so-called Xmas party. They had lots of Xmas songs and Xmas costumes and Xmas theme speeches. But the breaktime was just tea and coffee and packets of dry biscuits. I and another visitor muttered to each other and rolled our eyes. She was more forthright than I was. I have never been back.

Bananas are cheap and filling.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Why do Singaporeans like green pandan cakes?

The Singapore flag.

Green pandan cakes, which you can buy at bakeries and patisserie kiosks in shopping malls all over  Singapore, look elegant and interesting and are served at snacks at break times in meetings. The pandan cakes look enticing. 

However, to me, the flavour is disappointing. 

I always ask, 'What is this?'

If I see that one cake is lemon, the other is pandan, I lurk near the lemon, very pleased to see that local Singaporeans are avoiding the lemon and opting for the pandan. 

What have I got against pandan? The first time I saw a green cake, I thought it was pistaccio. What a disappointment! Nothing like the taste and texture and crunchiness of pistaccio. Was it mint?  No. Nothing like the acid bite of mint. So what do Singaporeans think?

I asked one, "Mike. Why do you prefer the pandan?' 

He answered:  'I think it's healthy and refreshing. The green colour suggests leaves - and green leaves are healthy.'

Cakes are full of flour and sugar. Fruit is healthier. I would rather have bananas and grapes. To me pandan cakes are like fake news. I am pleased to leave the pandan to the locals, whilst I am looking longingly at the lemon cake.

For decades Singlish was frowned on. Now advertisers are using it to appeal to the average to add local flavour, to sound chatty and informal.

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
See my other posts on Singlish and Singapore food.

Strange Foods In Singapore and At Changi Airport: durian, kaya and pandan

SINGAPORE
If you are travelling to Singapore, or on a stopover to Australia or anywhere else, look around Singapore or the airport.

Singapore is like one long food festival, with multi-national stalls on the cheap hawker centres and department store food courts.

Pandan Cookies and Cakes
My unfavourite food is the so subtle green pandan cake popular in Singapore which rarely tastes of anything and has no much or crunch. However, try anything once.

Pandan Chiffon cookie at Singapore's Changi Airport. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Pandan cake, Wikipedia.

You will find pandan cake in many bakery counters in kiosks in hawker centres (food courts in the basement of upper floors of shopping malls and department stores).

Durian
Durian comes in many forms. The evil-smelling fruit, like a green football. Cut up into oozing greeny yellow pieces. Horrid, in my opion.

Durian cakes in shopping mall, Singapore. Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Yet durian gives a wonderful flavour in ice creams and cakes, like banana, or chestnut.

You can also get chewy durian gums.

Durian gum. Photo by Angela Lansbury. 

And look for a durian topping, a paste squeezed like toothpaste over ice creams from hawker centres.

And this week Durian at the Goodwood Park hotel. On through June and until July.

Kaya Toast
Kaya is coconut jam, yellow and tasty, spread on toast for breakfast or a snack. I've also seen this at the airport.

Useful Websites
visitsingapore.com
singaporeair.com (Singapore Airlines)
https://www.ishopchangi.com
http://www.changiairport.com/en/shop-and-dine.html
http://www.goodwoodparkhotel.com/durian-fiesta-2018-,promotions_viewItem_1341-en.html

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Foodies Festivals, Syon Park, London, on Bank Holiday Monday and more all year

Problem
I hate battling crowded car parks, buying tickets in advance to commit when I can't predict the weather. However, the food festival this year looks so good. What's good?

Answer
FREE
The lure of goody bags and beer if you get in fast with the code.

SEE - CELEBRITY CHEFS
'Great British Bake Off winner 2017 Sophie Faldo baking live in The Cake & Desserts Theatre, as well as top local talent 
64 degrees & Great British Menu winner Michael Bremner, 
Michelin-starred Matt Gillan of Pike & Pine and 
Michelin-starred chef of Ockenden Manor Stephen Crane all cooking up a storm in the Chef's Theatre'.

SEE - RAINBOW CAKE
The cake and bake festival with my visual favourite, the multi-coloured rainbow cake. The question is, how do you get it to taste as good as it looks.

SINGAPORE
If you are travelling to Singapore, or on a stopover to Australia or anywhere else, look around Singapore or the airport.

Singapore is like one long food festival, with mutli-national stalls on the cheap hawker centres and department store food courts.

My unfavourite food is the so subtle green pandan cake popular in Singapore which rarely tastes of anything and has no much or crunch. However, try anything once.

Pandan cake. Photo from Wikipedia.

Yes, Singapore has rainbow cake too.

Back to England - flavoursome rainbow cake sounds great.

MACAROONS
What if you love desserts but want to save calories, and costs, and leave room to eat something different later? Macaroons are the thing. They usually have great colours and flavours.

PROSECCO
Cheap and cheerful, I like Prosecco, more than Cava and Champagne.  It's less alcoholic, too.
The alcohol includes:
Champagne
Gin
Prosecco
Beer
If you really want to cut down on the alcohol, try the beer. Or the Tea Tent.

What about children? Yes, cookery for kids.

Anything sensible and savoury (yes, Cheese) or healthy and fruity?

COLOUR
If you don't want more to eat, feast your eyes on the red aprons advertising the foodies festival. Not just in London. They hold events at places as far apart as Brighton in Sussex on the south coast of England and up north in Edinburgh, Scotland. You might have missed the one in Brighton early this year, and if you miss the May bank holiday event in London, there's Brigmingham in June and several more run by the same company. And they are not the only company.

Plus coastal areas have seafood celebrations.

More information from:
http://foodiesfestival.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_festivals_in_the_United_Kingdom

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. 

Pandan Leaf Cake - what it looks like - and how to load photos onto blogger

Here it is. Pandan leaf cake. A photo from Wikipedia.

You can see it is not my photo but by somebody called Midori.

I have just worked out how to solve three problems.

You want a free photo. Is it free?

Just go to Wikipedia. Wikipedia was founded with the express purpose of providing free information for the public to use (educational) and for the small start-up business which could not afford the cost of paying fees, nor the time and money to track down photographers and pay them.

Photographers donate photos either because they think it's a good idea, or to get more exposure for their great photos and the kudos of having their name, or to get more business by putting up one of their thousand photos as a free one. If you like their photo and you are a business you can pay them to take other photos for you.

As a photographer myself, I appreciate that a photographer cares very much for their name to appear. However, it's a nuisance loading up the photo, then going back to find the name. Then typing it up. Often they have foreign names with unusual spellings. If you want five photos in an article (my son who is in SEO Search engine optimization, or marketing websites, tells me one photo is not enough ) you can spend another half hour finding five photos and copying all the photographers' names.

I just found a solution. I was trying to load up, or upload as we now say, more concisely in computer speak. I could not move photos from my Wikipedia onto my laptop and then directly into blogger. The process required another step, moving the photos onto the desktop (the laptop 'desktop' - more computer speak).

Then I saw the words 'from your phone'. Photos were not on my phone. It took several days before I tried the obvious - which now seems obvious. In desperation, I took the photo which was on my laptop screen on my phone. Yes, you get a reduction in quality. But when it came to a choice between no photo, and a not perfect photo, I thought any photo was better than none.

Problem 1
You Download a photo from Wiki - how do you copy the name?
If you take a photo of your desktop photo, you can include the photographer's name.
The job is done fast. Because you have taken a photo, you have eliminated the risk of mistyping. You do not waste time needing to check for typos.

Back to my original subject - enjoy the picture of pandan cake.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.