Pandan Cheesecake - Perfectly Baked & The Creamiest Ever!

This pandan cheesecake recipe makes the creamiest, most fragrant baked cheesecake with natural pandan flavor. Paired with a coconut based cookie crust, whipped cream and thick homemade gula melaka syrup topping, this easy cheesecake is truly decadent!

Making this pandan cheesecake is pretty easy. It is naturally flavored with fresh pandan leaves. For maximum pandan flavor, the leaves are cut into small pieces and infused in the cream before being processed finely and the juice squeezed out.

If you are not able to find fresh pandan leaves, the frozen ones would work well too. And if these are also not available, you can replace them with a teaspoon of pandan paste (store bought).

The crust for this pandan cheesecake is coconut flavored. Fresh dessicated coconut is added into the cookie crust, giving this pandan cheesecake the lovely tropical aroma of the pandan and coconut. And to top all these, a simple drizzle of gula melaka syrup completes the pandan cheesecake.

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How to Make the Pandan Cheesecake

Ingredients

Crust

• Digestive cookies (or Graham Crackers)
• Castor sugar
• Butter (melted)
• Grated coconut

Filling

• Cream cheese (softened)
• Castor sugar
• Plain flour
• Whipping cream
• Pandan juice
• Eggs

Topping

• Gula melaka syrup

Preparing the cheesecake crust

1. Dry roast the desiccated coconut in a pan over low heat until it becomes light and slightly browned. Stir constantly to avoid the bottom from burning. Set aside to cool down.
2. Melt butter over low heat and set it aside to cool down. Crush the cookies until fine. You can do this is a food processor or by placing them in a ziplock bag and crushing them with a rolling pin.
3. Transfer the crushed cookies into a bowl. Add the sugar and the coconut and mix well.
4. Pour the melted butter and mix thoroughly until all the dry ingredients are well moistened.
5. Line a 7 inches round springform pan with a parchment circle. Pour the cookie crust into the pan and press it down into the bottom of the pan firmly.
6. You can use the back of a spoon to do this or the back of a drinking glass. Set the crust aside while preparing the cheesecake filling.

Making the pandan infused cream

1. Measure the cream into a small pot.
2. Wash and pat the pandan leaves dry. Cut them into small 1-cm lengths and add to the cream.
3. Turn on the heat to low and let the cream heat up until you see bubbles forming around the sides. Turn of the heat and cover the pot with a lid. Let the leaves remain in the cream as it cools down slightly.
4. Pour the warm cream along with the pandan leaves into a blender and blend the leaves until fine.
5. Strain the pandan infused cream with a fine mesh sieve or a cheesecloth.
6. Measure the pandan cream again and top up with more whipping cream if the quantity is lesser than what was measured before blending the pandan leaves in. Refrigerate the cream until ready to use.

Mixing the pandan cheesecake batter

1. Measure the cream cheese into a medium sized bowl. Beat until it becomes smooth and creamy. If the cheese is at room temperature, this process should not take long. However, if it is still cold, you will need to beat it for a longer period of time. Constantly scrape the sides of your mixing bowl.
2. Next, add the sugar, flour and salt and beat again until the ingredients are well incorporated and mixture is smooth.
3. Add in both the eggs and continue beating, making sure to scrape the sides of the bowl constantly.
4. Finally, add the pandan infused cream and mix it into the batter until well incorporated. Scrape the bowl to ensure no parts of the cheese mixture is left unmixed.
5. Pour the pandan cheesecake batter into the prepared crust and bake in a water bath in 160 degrees Celsius pre heated oven for 60 minutes.
6. Check the pandan cheesecake at 50 minutes baking time. If the sides are already firm but the center is still wobly, the cake is done. If not, continue baking until the 60 minutes is up and until the sides are firm (but the center should be wobbly or you risk having overbaked your pandan cheesecake). Once baked, turn of the oven and let the cheesecake remain in the oven for 10 minutes.

1. Remove from the oven, and let it rest in the tin for about 15 minutes before removing it from the tin. Round a spatula around the sides of the cake before releasing it from the springform pan. Refrigerate the pandan cheesecake for at least 4 hours before serving.
2. To serve, cut out slices onto serving plates and drizzle the gula melaka syrup on top.

The water bath (Bain Marie)

• Water bath (or bain marie) is a term used to describe the process of baking with a bowl of water in the oven. The heat from the oven cause the water to evaporate into steam and this steam helps to keep the interior of the oven moist.
• Such moist interiors, in turn, help to avoid cheesecakes from cracking.
• There are 2 ways to do the water bath for your pandan cheesecake:

The first method:

• The first method requires aluminum foil and an oven safe dish larger than the cheesecake tin.
• Wrap the sides of your springform pan with foil.
• The foil should be as high as the sides of the tin. Place the wrapped tin in a large dish filled with water.
• Make sure the water is only halfway up the springform pan after placing it into the dish, to avoid the water from getting into the foil wrap and seep into the cheesecake through the bottom of the cheesecake pan.

The second method:

• The second method requires 2 oven safe dishes larger than the cheesecake tin, but one of them should be slightly larger than the other.
• You fill up the largest dish with water (about one third full).
• And place the second tin into it.
• You then place the cheesecake tin into the second dish (which is dry) and bake the cake as indicated in the recipe.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can you use shredded coconut instead of desiccated coconut in the pandan cheesecake crust?

• Yes, you can. Use the unsweetened version.

What is the best substitute for fresh pandan leaves?

• You can use frozen ones and if those are also not available, you can use pandan paste that is sold in Asian stores or bakery supplies stores.
• Use 1 teaspoon of the paste for the recipe below. There is also no need to heat the cream up first. Simply add the pandan paste into the cheesecake mixture after adding the eggs.

Why is it important to heat up the cream first before using it to process the pandan leaves?

• Whipping cream in cold temperature will stiffen when beaten. When added cold into the blender to process the pandan leaves, it will stiffen as the blender works and that will make it difficult to squeeze out the pandan juice.
• Heating it up will ensure it does not stiffen when being processed in the blender. Squeezing the juice will also be a lot easier.

Why is it important re-measure the cream after blending in and straining the pandan leaves?

• Often the amount of cream you get after the blending and straining is lesser than the originally weighed amount. The cream tends to loose some volume as it is heated up and as it is mixed with the pandan leaves and strained.
• To ensure you still use the same amount as specified in the recipe, measure it again after straining. Top it up with more fresh cream until it reaches the required amount in the recipe.

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Like this pandan cheesecake recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out:

• Pandan Cake - Easiest Pandan Flavored Pound Cake
• Pandan Syrup - How to Make
• Flavorful and Easy Pandan milk
• Pandan Cookies with Coconut and Gula Melaka - An Easy Recipe
• Pandan Jelly with Coconut (Agar Agar Pandan)

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Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my easy baked pandan cheesecake recipe.

And that's that. My easy homemade, naturally flavored pandan cheesecake recipe.

Happy baking 🙂