Madhouse recipe : Pandan Cupcakes

Pandan, often referred to as the vanilla of South-East Asia, seems to be bang on trend at the moment with recipes popping up all over the place online. Also known as screwpine, fresh, dried or frozen pandan leaves can be boiled in water or coconut milk, then used to add flavour and colour to both sweet and savoury dishes, including rice, drinks and cakes. I had a bottle of pandan paste from an Indonesian-themed Kitchen Trotter box a couple of years ago that has been lurking on the shelves ever since. I made Kue Dadar Gulung (green coconut pancakes) but haven't used it since, so I decided to experiment, adding a spoonful to some basic cupcakes. It gave them a fabulous green colour, so the kids instantly dubbed them bogey cakes ! Flavour wise, it's hard to define because it's totally unique - sort of like almonds, coconut, limes and basmati rice all mixed together ! I topped the cakes with some Betty Crocker icing that needed using up and some Sour Watermelon sweets from the latest Degustabox. They certainly didn't hang about for long !

Pandan Cupcakes

ingredients:

150g margarine or soft butter

150g sugar

3 eggs

1tbsp pandan paste

150g self raising flour

to decorate, I used :

1/2 tub Betty Crocker vanilla icing

1 pack Sour Watermelon sweets

Cream together the butter/margarine and sugar.

Beat in the eggs.

Add the pandan paste.

Mix in the flour and beat to create a smooth batter.

Spoon into silicon muffin tins and bake at 180° for 15 minutes, until springy to the touch.

 I looked around the kitchen for inspiration and found half a tub of Betty Crocker vanilla icing in the fridge and some Candy Kittens Sour Watermelon sweets that tied in with my green colour scheme !

Have you tried pandan before? I'm wondering what else to make with it now !

This used up some of my pandan paste and half a tub of icing so I'm adding it to this month's #KitchenClearout linky.