Pandan, the hot new flavour?

Here in the Maldives, we have our very own food trends and crazes. The era of the kanamadhu (sea almond) cake gave way to a very kashikeyo (screw pine) focused time that gave us the delicious kashikeyo cake, and now there’s possibly another flavor on the rise, pandan.

Pandan is already an essential ingredient in our cuisine, as there’s hardly a curry or a traditional dessert that’s made without it. However, we’ve started to see the fragrant pandan leaves used in more non-traditional ways.

For example, look at these cute green pandan donuts from Bakeddo. Also, they are baked, not fried, because that’s what Bakeddo does.

And have you had Modus Operandi’s Déjà vu? It’s an iced tea infused with pandan and lemon grass, perfect for hot days.

Pandan and screw pine is a match made in heaven and these fusion rolls by Fonithoshi.mv have a pandan dough, a kashikeyo hunihakuru filling and a coconut glaze. Yummy indeed!

And of course there’s the green and delicious pandan cake, such as this delightful one from Moom’s Delights.

Photos by Bakeddo, Modus Operandi, Fonithoshi.mv, Moom's Delights and Andrea Nguyen.