Recently, I've gotten a bit into a pandan craze phase of circuit breaker (haha nope, no banana bread making for me), and this led to my FIVE pandan chiffon cake trials over two weeks in my quest for the perfect pandan chiffon cake. So I thought I would share how I obtain my pandan extract, so that all of you fellow home-bakers can go gaga over pandan with me hahaha xp
The process is really simple, but it's also super tedious, which is probably why bakeries that make pandan cakes from fresh pandan leaves charge way more than if it was made using artificial pandan essence. However, there is a definite difference in taste, and cakes made using fresh pandan juice just taste so much better, it makes the whole extracting process entirely worth it.
I've heard of many people who do their extraction of pandan directly using coconut milk especially when making pandan cakes, and I believe it works well. However, I prefer this method of water extraction, which I feel makes it easier for my blender to do the blending as you can add more liquid without worrying about diluting the pandan flavours. An alternative to this is to use a cold-press juicer, which may be slightly faster. So no matter the method, give it a go extracting your own pandan extracts and you'll probably never want to use the pandan essence bottle again (especially when you can find pandan leaves for rather cheap here in our tropical Singapore!)
General method
Wash the pandan leaves and clean with a cloth. Pandan leaves tend to trap quite a bit of dirt and you definitely don't want that going into your bakes.
Cut the cleaned pandan leaves into smaller pieces. That makes it a bit easier for your food processor/blender to do the work. Add water and blend. You still want to add a minimal amount of water and what I find works for me is double the weight of the pandan leaves.
OR if you are using a cold press juicer, you can skip this step and let your juicer do the hard work for you.
Strain the pandan juice/mixture through a fine mesh metal sieve or squeeze using a cheese cloth. If using a sieve, you may need to double sieve it to remove all the pandan pulp.
Leave it in the fridge for 1-2 days for the pandan juice to separate. It should separate into two distinct layers-- a clear pale yellow liquid on top and a dark green colour at the bottom if you are using a blender/food processor or a dark brown liquid on top and a dark green colour at the bottom if you are using a cold-press juicer.
Either way, decant or pour away as much of the top bit of clear yellow/dark brown liquid as possible (you can save this for cooking desserts like green bean soup), leaving the dark green bottom bit in your container --that is the pandan extract that you are after! You should obtain an extract that is about half the mass of the pandan leaves used. (eg. if you started with 300g pandan leaves blended with about 600ml water, you should be able to obtain about 150ml of pandan extract.)
Hopefully, this inspires and helps those new to pandan to join me in my pandan craze haha let me know if you try it!
Carina xx
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