Many years ago, I was trying to find this plant, been to countless nurseries and none sell it. A lady overheard me asking the staff from one of the nurseries and she proudly declared that she has such a plant in her garden. Being so desperate, I actually approached her to ask for cutting but she behaves as if I am after her money.
I was sharing this nasty experience with a friend and guess what, she promptly found me a cutting from an Indonesian friend. I was so happy and the rest is history. From then on, for years, I have been sharing to friends who enjoy baking pandan cakes or jelly.
As I do not like to feed my family with too much artificial colouring, the Sugi plants actually can give me a nice green hue on top of the pandan. Pandan itself does not have a strong green. Very often, commercial bakeries do add some colouring to heighten up the color. With Sugi working together with Pandan, I can omit this artificial colouring.
Why I am so desperate back then, I was looking for natural colouring that I can feed my family with. My son has eczema when young, so I tried to abstain artificial colouring for him. At 20s, I am proud to say he has baby soft skin with no outbreak.
So today, I will show you how I do my Homemade Pandan Extract.
I will be using this to bake Ondeh Ondeh cake and from there you will see how deep this color is and it is all-natural!
Top layer already filtered - pandan water
Bottom layer: concentrated pandan extract. 100% natural
What you need:
150g pandan leaves, washed and cut
40g suji leaves, washed and cut
200g water
Method:
In a blender, blend the leaves with water. You might need to do it batches.
Filter out the juice and add it back into the blender with a batch of leaves. Continue this step until all the leaves are blended.
Using a ricer, extract the juice.
Pour into a container and let it rest in the fridge for 2 or 3 days.
You will see a layer of concentrated pandan juice at the bottom.
Slowly pour away the water and you will be left with the pandan extract.
Use within a week or once green turned into a light brown.
Enjoy!