By Kim Choe
Read Kim’s story: The tales a table can tell
Pandan cupcakes with coconut buttercream and caramel filling
April 23, 2015
Category
Recipes
This cupcake uses a flavour combination quintessential to Indonesian sweets – pandan, gula melaka (palm sugar) and coconut. Pandan is still a relatively unknown flavour to the Western palate. It comes from the leaves of the pandanus plant, which have a soft, aromatic coconut flavour.
Notes
This recipe originally appeared on thebakingof.
Ingredients
For the pandan cupcake batter:
- 200g butter, softened
- 1 3/4 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 2 3/4 cups plain flour
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
- 1 cup milk
- 1 Tablespoon pandan essence (green)
- 1 Tablespoon pandan flavouring (colourless)
- NB: Pandan is available from most Asian supermarkets. You could opt to use 2 Tablespoons of either the essence or the flavouring, but combining the two gives the best balance of flavour and colour.
For the caramel filling
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 40 g butter
- 1/4 cup cream at room temperature
For the coconut buttercream icing
- 170g butter, softened (I would recommend using a vegetable oil substitute such as Olivani, because they are less yellow than butter and will result in whiter coloured icing.)
- 3 3/4 cups icing sugar
- 2 Tablespoons coconut milk
- NB: If you are planning to pipe your icing, rather than spread it with a knife/spatula, I’d recommend doubling the amount of icing.
Instructions
Cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 180˚C and line muffin/cupcake trays with cases.
- Cream butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
- Add the eggs and mix slowly until just combined.
- Sift flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl and mix lightly.
- Add milk, pandan essence and pandan extract, then mix gently until colour is distributed evenly.
- Half fill each cupcake case , then bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean.
Caramel filling:
- Put sugar in a clean, dry saucepan and melt it over a medium heat. Do not stir until half the sugar is melted. NB: It will be very hot. Be careful – and don’t use plastic utensils!
- When the sugar turns a dark golden colour, take off the heat. Add butter and stir until it is melted.
- Add cream and stir quickly until the caramel is smooth.
- Allow to cool completely – it will thicken substantially.
Coconut buttercream icing:
- Beat butter until soft and pale, then add coconut milk.
- Add icing sugar a little at a time, beating until smooth.
Assembly:
- When cupcakes and caramel are completely cool, it’s time to get filling. This can be done in two ways: cutting a hole out of the top of the cupcake (use the bottom of an icing tip, an apple corer or a small knife) and using a piping bag to put the caramel in, or fitting your piping bag with a narrow tip and putting it directly into the middle of the cupcake. If you choose the second method, be careful not to overfill or your cakes will burst!
- Ice!
© 2021 Copyright Kitchen Chapters
Hi,
I was just wanting to clarify that you use one and a quarter teaspoons of salt? It sounds like a lot but I am not sure. They look very yummy!
Hi Mary – yes, definitely one and a quarter teaspoons. It sounds like a lot but cuts through the sweetness nicely. Enoy!