Patterned Pandan Swiss Roll

When one of my close Malaysian friends was moving back home, I wanted to make something special and unique for her goodbye party.

Pandan Swiss roll cake, with cherry blossoms and "Farewell Hui Wen" in Chinese characters

I know that patterned Swiss roll cakes are soooo 2013/2014, but I hadn't made one before, and since Hui Wen had been helping me to learn Chinese, I thought that a cake like this would be perfectly suited for writing Chinese characters on, as well as involving the pandan leaf flavour, which Hui Wen had given me.
Pandan is a special Malaysian leaf that is often used in Malaysian cakes and desserts for flavouring. I'd heard about it online, but of course, when my friend turned up with several leaves of the stuff, I had no idea how to deal with it! The first time I tried to handle it, I took half of the leaves and chopped them up into couple cm squares and put them in a blender with one tablespoon water, as recommended by many people online. Massive fail! The leaves are so fibrous, that they just stuck to the inside of the blender and wound around the blade. I could barely get more than a drop of the stuff out, so I had to add more water to get it out, and as a consequence, it was very watered down. I knew that wouldn't be an option for this cake, so I tried another method. I tried to cut the leaves to as thin slices as I possibly could, to break down the fibres as much as possible. Then I put them in a mortar and pestle with a teaspoon of water, and mashed for 10 - 15 mins. Then, I squeezed the mixture through a fine sieve, and this seemed to get enough juices out to colour the batter and give it a light scent of pandan. I can see that it would have been better to use a cheese cloth, to really wring all the liquid out, but this method was close enough.
You can use any filling you want for the roll, common ones are whipped cream or mousse, but I wanted to make a cheesecake filling because my Chinese friends go crazy for it! I think it might have a little something to do with the difficulty in getting good quality dairy products in many parts of China. And also a few dairy-related food scandals! The filling is very easy to make, and once you've baked the cheesecake, you can just spread it around like any other filing.
For the rest of the roll cake, I mainly followed the method from Ann Reardon's "How to Cook That". Here is my modified version of that method:

Pattern ingredients:

50 g (1.76 oz) butter or (three tablespoons)

50 g (1.76 oz) icing sugar (1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons)

50 g (1.76 oz) egg whites (approx 2 egg whites)

40 g (1.41 oz) plain flour

10 g (0.35 oz) cocoa powder

Food colouring of choice
 

Swiss roll cake ingredients:

4 eggs, separated

1 tsp cream of tartar

110g (3.88 oz) sugar

60g (2.12 oz) or 3 tablespoons plus one teaspoon butter

100g (3.53 oz) plain flour
4 - 5 pandan leaves (if desired)
 

Cheesecake filling ingredients:

2 x 180 g pack of cream cheese, eg. Philadelphia original

100 g (3.5 oz) sugar (This is the regular amount. If you prefer less sweeter taste, like many Chinese people do, use half as much)

1.5 tbsp plain flour

Pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp lemon zest

1 large egg

120 ml (4.2 fl oz) soured cream

 

Cheesecake filling:

If you want to make the cheesecake filling, start with that first, so that it has time to cool down. I prefer to use a regular baked cheesecake recipe.

 

1. Preheat the oven to 220 C/gas 7. Line a metal loaf tin, or if you have a silicone loaf pan, there's no need to line it, because the cream cheese has enough fat and moisture for it to come away cleanly from the pan.
2. Beat the soft cheese until creamy, either by hand or on a low speed with a mixer. Gradually add the sugar, then the flour, and a pinch of salt, scraping down the sides as required.
3. Swap to a whisk and add the vanilla, lemon zest and juice. Whisk in the egg, and scrape the sides of the bowl down again to make sure the mixture is smooth. Ad the rouced screem and whisk again, but don't overbeat. The mixture should be smooth, light, and a bit airy
4. Pour the filling in to the pan, and smooth the top. You can put the pan in a bain marie in the oven, but since we'll be mixing up the cheesecake later, it doesn't matter if it cracks. Bake for 10 minutes, and then reduce the temperature to 110 C/gas 1/4 and bake for a further 25 minutes. You'll know when it's ready when you shake the tin, the filling still has a slight wobble. Leave to cool for 2 hours.
   

Pattern mixture: 

1. Always start with a plan before starting a patterned roll cake! It's not something you can wing, unless you have a lot of experience! Plan your ideas and draw them on paper, or on the computer. I wrote the characters and blew them up to a large size, then arranged some images of cherry blossoms around the text. Remember, that the image will be reversed in the final cake, so flip it so that it is a mirror image. I did this using Irfan View software. 
2. Cream the butter and icing sugar together until well combined and creamy. Add the egg white and beat well.
3. Separate the mixture into two - one will be the chocolate flavour and dark colours, while the other will be the lighter colours. For the lighter one, just add 25 g plain flour. For the chocolate one, add 10 g cocoa powder and 15 g flour. Stir in the flour until smooth. 
4. Divide each mixture into two again. For the cocoa mixture, leave one just brown to be the branches, and colour the rest with black gel food colouring for the Chinese characters. For the lighter mixture, colour one yellow for the inside of the flowers, and pink 
5. Place your desired design on your Swiss roll cake tin, and stick in position (usually 2/3 or 3/4 down the  with cellotape, so that it doesn't move. Then line the tin with your usual baking sheet on top. They are usually quite transparent, so you can still see the design. Using a piping bag with the end cut off, or a small piping tip, pipe the desired pattern on your baking sheet.

   

   Piping the cherry blossom and Chinese character design

6. Work from the outside in, so if you want the centre of the flowers to show, put the yellow down first. It's better to draw big bold shapes though rather than small bits - as you can see, the yellow I put down was barely visible in the final product!
   
7. Pop the design in the freezer, while you prepare the swiss roll cake batter.

Roll Cake Method:

1.  Melt the butter in a small dish in the microwave or on the hob. Leave to cool so that it's melted, but not too hot.
2. Separate the eggs, and put half the sugar with the yolks, and half and the cream of tartar in with the eggs whites. Whip up the egg whites until you get soft peaks, and then use the same beaters to whisk up the yolks and sugar until they look pale.
3. Fold the whites into the yolks a third at a time.
4. Add in half the butter and half the flour and fold in. Then add the remaining butter and flour, and fold until not streaks are remaining. This was also the point when I added the pandan juice, so that it would be mixed in at the same time as the butter, rather than adding an extra mixing step, and risk knocking too much air out. 
5. Pour the mixture over the frozen pattern, and spread to the edges. Try to get the cake to be an even thickness all the way, so that it cooks evenly. 
6. Tap the cake tray on the bench a few times to make sure the batter goes to all the corners and to get rid of any bubbles. 
7. Bake in the oven for no more than 7 minutes. If it starts to turn golden brown, it may be to dry and brittle, and will likely crack during the rolling!
   
8. Once the cake is ready, take it out of the oven, and immediately trim the edges, and place a clean sheet of baking paper on top. Turn the cake over, and then peel off the baking paper from the design while it's still hot. Place a clean sheet of baking paper again over the top, and flip it over again. Then roll up the cake, so that it cools in its final position. 

   

   Spreading the cheesecake onto the roll

9. If using the cheesecake filling, remove the top layer of skin, and then mash up the remaining cheesecake with a fork. You can spread it out over the cooled roll cake using a palette knife, leaving an inch or two near the design end, as the filling tends to push out as you roll it up. You can use any other filling you desire, such as whipped cream, fruit or marshmallow fluff, whatever you like!
10. Roll up the cake using the baking paper and arrange so that the design is showing in the correct place. Trim the edges if desired. Leave in the fridge until ready to serve

Cutting the cake at the party