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Hello, springtime! This springy, spongy, stenciled cake roll is filled with a layer of rich kaya (coconut jam) and fluffy pandan whipped cream.

If your piping skills aren’t up to snuff, stencils make for gorgeous prints and patterns with minimal effort… like screen printing, but with cake batter. This monstera leaf design is achieved with 3 different colors of green batter for a water-color like effect, on a pale pink background that’s perfectly on trend.

This recipe is the product of months of dreaming and weeks of testing. It’s something I’ve been planning for quite a long time (I actually bought the monstera stencil before the wood-grain stencil from my holiday cake roll), but ended up waiting until spring when the design would better match the weather.

The idea for the design popped into my brain and has remained pretty much unchanged (and the fact that the final result matches my vision so closely… well, I’m pleased as punch).

But that still left me with the question of… what do I fill it with?

I knew I wanted something green, to match the monstera leaf design. And I also wanted something a bit different than my usual green-go-to’s (aka matcha and pistachio). The perfect solution came in the form of Pandan: a grass-like leaf native to Southeast Asia which is often used in flavoring sweets and desserts.

I also added a thin layer of Kaya, a coconut-egg jam popular in Southeast Asia (especially Malaysia and Singapore), to give it an extra kick of flavor and sweetness and again, to make it a little bit different from my previous cake roll recipes. The punch of coconut is a perfect pairing for the subtle vanilla notes of the pandan. I simply adore this combination and couldn’t be more delighted with how the final product turned out (although, I’d maybe be slightly more delighted if it didn’t take me 5 rolls to get it just right…)

As is the case with this recipe, I am often inspired by Asian ingredients, flavors, and techniques, and I try my best to show my appreciation for the origins and cultural histories of these amazing and diverse foods. I truly believe we can all enjoy these unique recipes and ingredients, while still appreciating the cultures from which they hail and without laying claim to them as our own (there is a fine line between appropriation and appreciation, and I try very much to fall under the later with my recipes).

I simply didn’t feel comfortable posting a recipe like this one, inspired by Japanese techniques and Southeast Asian flavors, without addressing the increasing violence and hateful rhetoric directed towards Asian Americans in this country. Sadly, it is nothing new: Asian-Americans have been discriminated against in this country since before it was a country, even. This Twitter thread is rather eye-opening; did you learn about any of this in history class? Because I sure didn’t.

Talk is good and all (the more we can create awareness about what’s happening, the better), but I’m committed to putting my money where my mouth is, as they say. So I’ve committed to donating 100% of the Q2 ad revenue from this post to the AAPI Community Fund, which aims to address the urgent issues that face the AAPI community as well as broader, systemic problems through grants issued to trusted AAPI organizations working to rectify the racial inequalities in our society.

Please join me in donating to support organizations doing good in this country and in your community. Talk to your friends, family, and neighbors (and call out those who say hateful or derogatory things). Support Asian-run businesses in your neighborhood. Follow AAPI creators and food bloggers and, when you’re searching for a recipe, seek out those creators that have an authentic voice in whatever cuisine you are searching for (you may have to go to page 3 or 4 of the search results, such is the machine that is Google, but they’re there, I promise!)

You can also register for a free Bystander Intervention Training (I’m signed up for the April 20th date) to help become more informed and learn how to react and intervene in hateful and potentially harmful situations.

Not sure how to transition from such a serious subject to… cake… but if cake is ultimately what it takes to get us all talking about these issues and, more importantly, taking action, then cake it is.

This is a Japanese-style cake roll, distinguished by its fluffy, chiffon-like texture and often intricate (and usually adorable) designs. This style of cake is much less sweet than most American cakes, which is a nice change of pace when you’re craving a sweet treat but not THAT sweet.

Chiffon-style cakes are ubiquitous throughout Asia, and are traditionally filled/frosted with whipped cream. While I did make a test cake using a pandan and kaya-infused buttercream, I ultimately decided to go with the more traditional whipped cream based filling, infused with Pandan extract (and many thanks to my lovely friend, and self-proclaimed Kaya-eating expert Tabitha for her valuable insight and tasting feedback).

In addition to the pandan whipped cream, I added a thin layer of kaya, which is a coconut jam from Southeast Asia. There are a few different varieties, I used this sunny yellow srikaya in the final roll, but there is also a darker, greenish yellow variety made with pandan called nanyang kaya. I would have loved to use this style for even more pandan flavor, but both of the jars I ordered (in two separate orders, mind you) arrived with damaged unsealed lids and popped safety buttons. Luckily the third jar, ordered from a different brand/seller, arrived safe and sound… about 5 hours after I finished the final shots for this post. Oh well. It will certainly be enjoyed though, I have no doubt of that.

You can also make your own kaya too, with little more than coconut milk, egg and sugar. If you can’t track down fresh pandan, you can easily use pandan extract or pandan powder for flavor and color. I used the same pandan extract in the whipped cream filling as well.

How to Make a Stenciled Cake Roll

While it might seem more complicated, I’d argue the stencil design is easier than a piped design, as all you really have to do is smear the batter across the stencil and peel it off. No piping skills necessary.

You’ll first want to make up your design paste, which is thicker and pastier than the bulk of the cake batter. I added a bit of green pandan extract to my paste as a ‘base color’, then split it into three small bowls to which I added a bit more food coloring. The result was three different shades of green, which I applied to the stencil like a painter with a palette knife. Then scrape the excess off with an offset spatula or a straight-edged bench scraper, leaving a thin (but not too thin) layer behind.

If you want to match the same colors I used here, you’ll want to get yourself the following colors of Americolor gel food coloring: Electric Pink (for the cake base), Teal, Leaf Green, Mint Green, and Electric Green (for the leaves).

If you’d prefer to pipe a design (which you can totally do!) depending on the complexity of your design, you may want to double the paste recipe just to ensure you have enough to finish the full pattern.

You can find the same monstera leaf stencil I used for this recipe on Etsy (the 7.5-by-10-inch size).

I wish the stencil had been an inch or two wider (there’s an inch or so of bare space that I positioned so it was on the bottom of the roll), 9 or 10 inches wide would be the ideal size for a cake roll stencil. The seller has mentioned she may be able to do a slightly larger size – worth messaging her about it if you’re interested!

Any stencil will work here, although stencils will super fine details may have issues with air bubbles (the inner loops of the leaves, for example, are very small spaces that the airy batter of the cake doesn’t fully settle into. You can see in the ‘pour’ shot below I tried to remedy this by hand-piping a tiny bit of pink batter into the small spaces, which helped a bit but was rather tedious). For that reason larger, slightly less complex designs are preferable.

The key to preventing a cake roll from cracking is to roll it up in a tea towel while it is still warm. This creates a muscle memory of sorts, so once cooled and filled, it’ll roll right back into shape without cracking.

Cake roll tip: to preserve the perfectly round shape, chill/store your cake roll in a cardboard tube about 3.5 to 4-inches in diameter. I use a tube that came with one of Taylor’s whiskey bottles (interestingly enough called E.H. Taylor brand, probably why he bought it in the first place!) that happens to be the perfect size. Something like this would also work, though you’ll need to cut it down so it fits in your fridge.

The cake will be set enough to cut in about 2 hours, though if you have time to chill it longer it’ll hold its shape even better.

Cake Roll Troubleshooting

If you’re having issues with your cake roll coming out too flat/thin, or if your design wrinkles, cracks or sticks, there are a few reasons why that might be happening.

– Wrong size pan. This recipe is written for a standard jelly-roll pan, which falls in between a half and quarter sheet. Approximately 10-by-15-inches in size. A 13-by-9-inch pan would be the closest alternative, though you’ll end up with a slightly thicker cake layer and a shorter, squattier roll overall. If you only have a half sheet pan (13-by-18-inch), you’ll want to 1.5x the recipe (sort of tricky to do with 3 eggs, which is why I recommend getting your hands on a true jelly roll pan if you can).

– Unstable meringue. 100% of the lift in this cake recipe is from the meringue: from the air beaten into egg whites. If your meringue is underbeaten, overbeaten, or just plain unstable, it won’t give the cake the lift it needs. Weather can sometimes affect meringues, as can the freshness of your eggs (fresh, cold eggs are best here). Also, use the egg whites immediately after they are beaten; if you let them sit they tend to deflate.

– Overmixed batter. When you add the egg whites to your base batter, you want to gently fold the egg whites in until they are just incorporated, no more. Check YouTube for proper folding techniques if you’ve never done it before (don’t be like David and Moira).

– Too much flour. In my testing, using too much flour resulted in a base batter that was much thicker, and much harder to incorporate the egg whites into. This ultimately resulted in a batter that was overmixed and lacking the air it needed to properly rise.

You’ll notice this recipe calls for cake flour, which is more finely-milled and lower-protein than cake flour. If you substitute All Purpose flour here, which weighs more per cup than cake flour, you’ll want to use an equal weight, not volume, which is most definitely a problem.

I have a feeling 75% of the issues people have with this style of cake is a result of over-measuring the flour. If you’re buying Pandan extract and Kaya on Amazon already, go ahead and add a kitchen scale to your cart if you don’t already have one. Trust me, it’s a game changer.

– Cracks. An overbaked cake, because it is drier and slightly browned/crispy around the edges, is much more likely to crack when you try to roll it up. Pull the cake out of the oven when the top is spongy and the edges are just barely (I mean barely!) starting to brown. Then, keep your potholders on and flip the cake out right away. Dust with sugar and roll it up in a tea towel while the cake is still warm, as this will give it a ‘muscle memory’ that will also keep it from cracking.

– Wrinkles. Not all parchment paper is created equal, and this is one recipe where you want to use something good and thick. Thin parchment tends to wrinkle when it comes in contact with moisture (like, say, a moist cake batter), and those wrinkles will show up in your final cake roll. I use King Arthur’s parchment paper sheets, which are nice and thick and doesn’t easily wrinkle.

– Sticking. Additionally, if you find your stenciled design is sticking to the parchment when you try to peel it off, try a different brand of parchment paper or even a silicone baking mat. You can also coat the surface with a very thin layer of butter before adding your design.

With the King Arthur parchment I did not need butter; when peeling the parchment just do it slow and carefully so you can catch and peel off any bits of the design that are sticking before they come off the surface of the roll. Ideally, the design will stay put, but the thin surface of the cake base will peel off with the parchment, revealing a slightly raised design and bubbly surface texture around it. It doesn’t always work exactly this way (did I mention it took me 5 tries to get this right?) but the design still looks lovely even when it’s imperfect.

The base cake roll recipe is virtually unchanged from my strawberry version, which shows you just how flexible this recipe can be. Different designs, colors, and fillings galore; really, the sky’s the limit!