Hot Milk Cake with Pandan Kaya filling

So we went to Hoo Hing recently and as usual Random Things To Try somehow found their way into the trolley.

This time the things included a jar of Pandan Kaya, which turned out to be a thick custard-like spread made from eggs and coconut milk, flavoured with pandan leaf. My immediate thought on trying it was that it would make an excellent filling for a cake. Preferably a light plain sponge cake that would show off the filling's flavour without overpowering it.

This American Hot Milk Cake from Farmers Weekly sounded perfect, just needing a couple of tweaks.

I don't bother to keep self-raising flour AND plain flour, and of course when I looked in the cupboard there wasn't quite enough plain white flour left so it ended up being about 2/3 plain white flour and 1/3 chapathi flour.

Rhubarb and Vanilla Jam

The rhubarb plant in the garden is growing very enthusiastically! It looks like it now has 5 or 6 budding points on the crown, so it probably will need lifting and splitting into 2 or more plants in the autumn. I pulled a load of stalks from it, and pulled up a couple of raspberry shoots that were trying to invade its patch.

Rhubarb jam is easy to make and tends to set up very well. Rhubarb and Vanilla jam tastes like a fruitier version of the Rhubarb and Custard boiled sweets that we used to eat as kids.

As you can see from the jam colour, my rhubarb is one of the green and pink varieties that loses its colour when cooked. For a brighter pinker jam, try to get hold of one of the more strongly coloured varieties.

Cucumber Lime Jam with Vanilla

Despite eating lots of Cucumber Raita, we still have a huge pile of cucumbers that need eating. This calls for desperate measures, namely googling to see if Cucumber Jam is a thing. And apparently it is indeed a thing.


The search turned up a couple of interesting recipes: this Vanilla Cucumber conserve recipe and this Cucumber Jam one.

Based on these starting points, I decided to try making a Cucumber Lime Jam with Vanilla.