One of the earliest lessons I have learned in food photography is that when shooting products, they should be as fresh and the finest quality as possible. Small details such as blemishes and bruises that are sometimes un-noticed may show up in post processing and mar the marketability of the images.
One of the most frustrating subjects I have tried to shoot was the Pandan Custard Cake or better known as the Seri Muka Cake as it does not keep well if not kept chilled after cooking. This delicious morsel is a serious diet crasher for weight watchers and it is one of my favorite sweets. For those who are not familiar with Asian desserts or sweets, this is a Nonya or Peranakan pastry or dessert made from a layer of glutinous rice steamed with a coconut suntan solution with a slight salty tone and a rich custard topping. It is typically cut up into a diamond or rectangular shape and served for breakfast or noon tea and is popular in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The diet crasher culprit comes from the top layer which is made from eggs, rich coconut suntan, cane sugar and a bit of flour to provide some body and perfumed with the fragrant Pandanus leaf. At the same time, the Pandanus leaf also contributes to the green coloring of the custard. This is poured onto top of a steamed glutinous rice layer and left further to steam on gentle heat until it is set. There are a few versions including one with pumpkin instead of Pandanus.
A few attempts to purchase this article at the food markets for photographing ended up most disappointingly. The shapes and sizes were also not the correct type. The sides of the pastries were pretty rough cut and trimming them meant a smaller subject for shooting.
The food vendors usually cover the surface with a plastic sheet, car-touched to prevent it from developing a skin on the food surfaces (and to keep out the flies! Yeap! Truth be told!) and that resulted in a marred surface when the plastic sheet was taken off every time a buyer came along. Twice, the pastries turned runny during the trip back due to the hot weather and resulted in an un-edible googy mass of food. It turns out that the baddies were carry-overs from the morning sales to the afternoon period. I’m sure that if I had left it on the table for a few more hours, there would be sufficient bacteria to kill off any brave diner.
The only alternative was to make my own. Should be easy, me thinks. The recipe looks so simple. After all, it’s only rice, eggs, suntan and sugar. The first one hardly resembled the pastry as I had steamed it at a higher than required heat and it looked like the surface of the moon (in green). The second one turn out better but the custard layer had this big ugly bubble in the middle. The third try resulted in a bigger bubble at the side. This is very frustrating.
The fourth attempt resulted in a brick-like rice layer hard enough to stun the neighborhood’s feral dogs. The glutinous rice has not spent sufficient time soaking in water… only three hours required as the recipe book said. Some serious editing and adjustments are required in this cookbook. I sliced off the topping and “canapé” that to a couple of crispy cream biscuits. Hey… it does taste quite good with the combination, I’d say.
For the next attempt instead of using a food processor, the Pandanus leaves were pounded to a wet mash in a stone pestle without any added liquid and fresh milk was used (instead of water as instructed in the recipe book) to facilitate the extraction of the pandan liquor. The glutinous rice was allowed to stand overnight in the refrigerator this time. Okay, time to get cracking at the stove again.
Thick coconut suntan was added to the pandan-milk extract together with the rest of the ingredients. A couple of Butterfly Pea flowers also known as Clitoria ternatea was pressed to extract the blue dye and added to the batter to increase the depth of the pandan color because the white coconut suntan and egg yellows turned it into a light apple green. When a few drops of acid such as lemon juice is added to the blue dye, the color of the Clitoria ternatea extract turns to indigo. So off it goes into the steamer to cook.
After the timer went off, indicating that the steaming process was completed… Voila! Finally, a beautiful, completely smooth custard topping as it should be. Not even any trace of tiny bubbles created during the stirring process. It was left to cool off on a rack for four hours before I attempted to cut into the pastry.
Mmmmm… a very nice, almost warm, creamy, moist rice layer with a rich, smooth custard layer. Think Crème Brule and you’ll get the idea of the richness and texture of the custard without the caramelized crispy sugar layer on top. Just about right... a touch of saltiness when one bites into the creamy, al dente layer of coconut rice with a rush of sweetness in the rich egg custard scented by the Pandanus. Ahhh… nothing like a home-made, rich, moist, warm serimuka. Unbeatable.
For the next one, I would need to press more butterfly pea flowers for more blue to make the apple green Pandan layer return back to it’s original dark green.
Meanwhile, after all these, I must now pay the price. Sigh… another two thousand laps around the circuit to work off the extra calories. Cheers!
