Pandan Flavour Steamed Egg Cake - 香兰口味的蒸鸡蛋糕

It is always a blessing to be able to enjoy one or two of your favourite childhood food and at the same time passed down its traditional value to the younger generations. Here together with my little one I have made a traditional Steamed Egg Cake aka Ji Dan Gao (鸡蛋糕) which is infused with Pandan (screwpine) flavour instead of the plain one that we normally made.

The reason why we made it pandan flavour is because my boy is a big fan of Pandan Chiffon Cake and in order to make him loves this steamed egg cake I decided to add in some pandan paste to enhance the flavour (cover up the egg taste) as well as visual effect.

Tim Ho Wan (添好運) @ Toa Payoh Central

Ever since Tim Ho Wan (添好運) opens it's first outlet in Singapore (Plaza Singapura) earlier this year in April. It has definitely captured the heart of dim sum lovers in Singapore who don't mind queuing up for at least 60 - 90 minutes just to savor their signature items such as Baked BBQ Pork Bun, Steamed Egg Cake, Carrot Cake and etc.

And now with it's second outlet opens at Toa Payoh Central (ERA Centre) and a third one coming up soon in Bedok (by end of this year), hopefully the queue will be shorter when more outlets are easily access across the island.

As the queue over at Plaza Singapura is always snake long, I decided to try my luck at their new Toa Payoh outlet since it is nearer to my area. And thanks God, when mum and I arrived at around 10.35am (opens at 11.00am) the queue was not as bad as what we thought and we managed to get our seats by 11.05am.

*so the secret tips are: avoid lunch/dinner time or try to be early before it opens.*

Steamed Egg Cake (Ji Dan Gao) and Red Bean Soup

Steamed Egg Cake or also known as Ji Dan Gao (雞蛋糕) is one of the tradition steamed cake, which is commonly used for praying purpose during festive occasion such as Chinese Lunar New Year. I still remember vividly when I was a child, I used to help my mum using those old fashion handheld egg eater to beat 8 or 10 eggs together with sugar. Although the process was tiring but I always look forwards to enjoy my favourite teacake after the praying. And to me that was the most delicious homemade cake compared to those fancy varieties that we have nowadays.

So when I read the steamed egg cake post on Ju's blog, my heart was filled with joy and I immediately shares the post with my mum where it brings back a lot of our Kampong days memories. During the chat she still mentioned we used to beat the cake batter manually using hand beater for at least 20 minutes and while beating she would get ready the steamer over the charcoal stove.

Although there are many ways of making this traditional cake such as using leavening agent like baking powder or fizzy drinks like cream soda or 7-Up. But no matter which is your preference I am sure it will still brings out the old time flavour. (Here I am a bit upset that my cake did not "Smile" (open up) at the end of steaming process)


(adapted from Ju, TheLittleTeochew HERE)
Ingredients: (make 7" round cake)
4 Large Egg
210g Caster Sugar
230g Cake Flour, sifted 2 - 3 times
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence
120ml Cream Soda

Tip:-
~ For my mum's version she added 1 tablespoon of freshly pound pandan juice instead of vanilla essence to enhance the fragrance of this steamed egg cake.

Method:-

1. Whisk eggs in a large mixing bowl till frothy, add in sugar in 3 - 4 batches to ensure it is well incorporated.

2. Add vanilla essence and continue beating until the batter becomes very pale, thick and creamy. Meanwhile, heat up wok, pot or steamer until you get a gentle boil. (Do make sure the pot/steamer is large enough to fit the cake tin and has ample space for the batter to rise and steam to circulate.)

3. Fold in the sifted flour in thirds, alternating with the soda and ending with flour.

4. Pour the cake mixture into prepared baking tin or bamboo steam that is lined with greaseproof paper.

5. Pop it into the pot/steamer, cover and steam on high heat for about 30 minutes or when skewer insert and comes out clean.

6. Once done, remove the cake from tin, place it on a rack and allow to cool before cutting.

Red Bean Soup (红豆汤) is one of the popular dessert served during Chinese New Year, wedding and etc and you can easily grab a bowl or two at any local dessert stall range from S$0.70 to $2.20 each depending on the stalls and location. We love both the red and green bean soup so I usually would rotate these two dessert in our menu at least once or twice a month.

Ingredients: (serves 2 - 4)

200g Red Bean
1.8 Litres of Water
1/2 Pieces of Candied Tangerine
A few Pieces of Pandan Leave, tied into knots
Cane Sugar to Taste

Method:-

1. Rinse the red beans with in a large bowl, remove any dirt or spoilt beans. Drain and set aside.

2. Bring 1.8 Litre of water to boil in a medium saucepan (I used my small Endo, thermal magic cooker), add in red beans and when the water comes to boil again, lower the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

3. Remove the pot from stove and place it into the magic cooker, cover and let the bean continue to cook through using the heat from the pot.

4. After 30 minutes, remove the pot and simmer it on low heat for another 10 minutes together with the candied tangerine and pandan leaves.

5. When done, place the pot back into the magic cooker, cover and let it cook for another 20 minutes till the beans became soften.

6. Remove the pandan leave and add in cane sugar/caster sugar to taste while simmer the pot on stove over low heat.

*7. If using normal pot, just simmer the red bean together with pandan leaves and candied tangerine for about 30 - 40 minutes till the bean soften before adding sugar to taste.


The inner pot of this magic cooker can be used on any stoves as well as on induction cookers which then helps to save time, gas or electricity and at the same time achieve perfect cooking too.

Here we have a very simple old school types of afternoon tea snack such as homecook Red Bean Soup served with slices of freshly Steamed Egg Cake. Love the nutty flavour from the red bean soup that pairs well with hint of tangerine fragrance from candied tangerine. There is another way which I love to eat my steamed egg cake is to dip it slowly in either Coffee or Milo. So what's your favourite way of eating these lovely steamed egg cake?