Coconut Pandan Cheesecake

Boy, am I late! The theme for this month's Little Thumbs Up is Pandan (which is another brilliant theme!) and hosted by the very talented Joceline of Butter, Flour and Me. And here I am, limping to the finishing line just a day before the end of the month! I feel like a tardy student handing up her assignment right at the last minute :)

I have been admiring Joceline's blog and she has a great repertoire of delightful bakes. And I love her beautiful photos. Joceline blogs in Mandarin and I do follow a handful of blogs written in Mandarin.

And I've got to tell you, Google Translator is of no help at all. Why? Because this is a sample of what I get - "I remembered the days of studying in the horse" Huh?? Or how about this one "In the horse the night before, Mom killed four keep a year of big fat chicken". Wahahahaha!! So friends, not only do I learn new dishes from you, I also get a good laugh along the way. Sorry, ah.......not your fault lah but thanks to Google Translator. My grandpa very wisely taught me that every language has a beauty of it's own, some of which may be lost in translation. Or end up hilarious in this case. How true!

My cheesecake base was a disaster. Crumbly and hard.

I regret playing the fool during Mandarin class when I was in primary school. Me and my cohorts used to giggle and pass around salted peanuts during the afternoon class. Our "lao tze" (teacher) was a very kindly man. I have fond memories of him checking my homework. We had to match sentences on the left to the ones on the right. "Lao tze" shook his head as he gently chided me "Aiya, your mother can wash mosquito, ah? And after we have our dinner, we have to run?". Even my grandma could not help laughing.

You see, I couldn't read and I simply "hantam" and mismatched the sentences. And of course they turned out nonsensical.  As a Chinese who can't speak Mandarin, I am often looked upon as strange. I don't speak Cantonese either and I get this a lot "Eh, you not Chinese ah??" When that happens, I can only respond in Hokkien with "Gua beh heow thiah" (I don't understand) or "Lu kong hamik?" (What did you say?). So, I am not that hopeless after all, eh? But when all else fails, this is the last resort "Lu tau cakap Melayu?" (Can you speak Malay?).

Messy!

Sorry for this late entry, Joceline! But as they say, better late than never! Pandan is mostly used in desserts and cakes which are not my strong suite. The only savory dish I can think of is nasi lemak and pandan chicken but these are too much for me to handle especially with my bad back. So to my relief, I found this simple pandan cheesecake from the book Cheesecake Mania, a perfect book for cheesecake maniacs like me :)

My two 6" cheesecakes in non-removable pans. Had to line with aluminum foil and baking paper.

My only disaster here is the cheesecake base. I only had something like 6 pieces of digestive biscuits and I used cornflakes to make up for the shortfall. Bad idea as it did not work out at all. To add to this shortcoming, both my 8" and 8.5" springform pans are no longer usable. The 8" is bent out of shape (don't know how that happened) while the 8.5" is rusty! Grrrr.....Determined to bake my cheesecake, I used two 6" pans with no removable base. I had to line them with aluminium foil and baking paper to enable me to remove the cheesecake once baked. Although the base turned out crumbly and hard, the cheesecake itself was delicious! Initially I was worried if cream cheese worked with pandan and coconut milk and my fears were unfounded. Highly recommended for cheesecake lovers who love pandan and coconut!

Coconut Pandan Cheesecake

Recipe source : Cheesecake Mania page 32
(My notes and adaptations in red)

Ingredients :

Base :

- 160g crushed digestive biscuits

- 80g melted butter

Cheese Layer :

- 450g cream cheese (I used 500g)

- 100g caster sugar

- 3 eggs (I used 2 large eggs)

- 150 ml coconut milk (I used 200ml)

- 60g pandan juice (I omitted)

- 1 tbsp corn flour (I used custard powder)

- 1 tsp pandan essence (I used 1/2 tsp store bought pandan paste)

Topping :
- A few drops green coloring.

My method of marbling :

- reserve a small bowl of the cheese filling and add a few drops pandan paste for a deeper green colour.

Method :

1. To make the base, combine all ingredients and press into a 18cm (7 inch) cake tin.

2. To make cheese layer, beat bream cheese and sugar until soft and smooth.

3. Stir in coconut milk, pandan juice, corn flour and essence until well blended. Pour cheese mixture into prepared tin.

4. Add in green coloring with 1 tbsp of cheese mixture, mix well. Drizzle over the surface. Draw marble pattern with skewer. 

5. Bake in preheated oven at 170C for 40 minutes or until cooked. (I baked my two 6" cakes at 140C for 40 minutes)

6. Remove cake from oven and leave to chill in fridge.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of My Little Favourite DIY and hosted by Joceline of Butter, Flour and Me

This post is also linked to Cook-Your-Books #4 hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours.