Ubiquitous Ube by Caroline Mays

The Yam is Emerging as a Purple People Pleaser

Ube is the Southeast Asian yam that is taking the U.S. pastry world by storm—tropical storm, that is.

In the Philippines, ube is beloved for its sweet, nutty, sometimes vanilla-like flavor. Others have likened it to pistachio. According to The Philippine Times, The yam’s starchy texture is “conducive to absorbing various [flavours], such as the richness of cream or the woodiness of coconut.”

Both Forbes and The New York Times listed ube as the flavor of the year in 2023, though Filipinos have been eating ube for millennia. According to the The Philippine Times, “Archaeological findings . . . have unearthed ube remains dating back to 11,000 BC.”

Communications firms, af&co and Carbonate, released an Annual Hospitality Trends Report in 2023 that listed ube first among its trends to watch.

Ube desserts have already been relatively easy to find in California for several years, thanks to the Filipino diaspora. With 1.6 million Filipino-Americans, California is, by far, the state with the largest Filipino population. Hawaii comes in second place with 270,000 Filipino-American residents. Ube’s popularity has grown because Filipino-American pastry chefs and business owners want to share their heritage with the world.

Though sometimes confused with taro by those unfamiliar with it, ube is also presented as a purple food – but it is the truer purple food. Raw taro is much lighter, closer to a very light lilac, or white with purple flecks in it. Raw ube, however, is truly a deep purple color. Adrienne-Joy Jataas, chef and owner of UBAE in Honolulu, HI, says that the color is what makes people curious to try it.

Fresh, raw ube is, unfortunately, very difficult to obtain in the lower 48 states. Many dessert shops bake with frozen ube, pureed ube, powdered ube, or ube extract.

Ube is baked into many dishes, both sweet and savory, in the Philippines. But two of the most ubiquitous ube desserts are halaya and halo-halo.

Halaya, or jam, is made with mashed ube, milks, and sugar. It is mixed, boiled, and simmered into a thick paste. Halaya can be eaten as a dessert on its own, or added to other dishes such as cookies, cakes and rolls.

Halo-halo is the Filipino version of a layered, shaved-ice dessert made of shaved ice, evaporated milk, and toppings. Halo-halo, which means “mix-mix” in Tagalog, is often topped with ube halaya, ube ice cream, flan, coconut, fruit or other sweetened tubers or legumes, such as taro, kidney or garbanzo beans. Halo-halo can be served in a bowl or in a tall glass as a parfait.

In the U.S., chefs are baking cupcakes, cream puffs, cheesecakes and mochi hybrids with ube. At UBAE, which stands for Ube Before All Else, baking with ube was a natural choice for Jataas, who grew up seeing her grandmother bake with ube in Hawaii.

UBAE serves up brightly-colored 8” cheesecakes, ube tarts, ube crinkle cookies, ube soft serve, ube delight cake, 8” flanbae chiffon cake, ube rolls and ube mamon.

The most popular desserts are the cheesecakes and cookies, which were Jataas’s debut dishes. Jataas described the 8” cheesecakes as being “pretty rich,” “velvety” and paired with a “golden brown and graham cracker crust.” For a bite-sized cheesecake on-the-go, Jataas also makes mini-cheesecake tarts, which includes the same cheesecake filling, but replaces the graham cracker crust with a “buttery shortbread-type crust.”

Jataas says that customers “have described our cookies as being cake-like, or brownie-like.” She says that her cookies are “soft on the inside,” have a “light crust on the outside” and are covered in powdered sugar.

At Café 86, a California family business-turned-franchise with 15 locations and counting, ube is the star of the menu. Ube desserts include truffles, ube leche flan cupcakes, ube butter bars, ube tres leches, halo-halo bread pudding, ube crack cheesecake, ube pop tarts, ube ice cream and milkshakes.

Flan, coconut, milk and cream are flavors that are often mixed with ube. Café 86’s ube leche flan cupcakes are moist and flavorful. While the textures provide a satisfying contrast, the milky-caramel flavor of the flan complements the subtle ube-flavored cupcake. Meanwhile, the ube pop tarts combine ube with macapuno coconut. Café 86’s ube pop tarts feature halaya and coconut baked into a buttery pastry. The ube tres leches mixes all three together: the tres leches cake is made of an ube sponge cake soaked in coconut milk, and evaporated and condensed ube milk then topped with whipped halaya and crunchy meringue.

Café 86 founder Ginger Dimapasok told PBS Local, “I don’t want to look at [ube] as a trend. I hope that it stays and people will learn to love it and embrace it.”

Many of ube-centric dessert shops are family-owned businesses catering to their families and friends’ cravings, while also tempting the tastebuds of the larger community.

“We introduced this vibrant purple dessert and we hope that it opens doors for people to be more willing to try other Filipino desserts or Filipino food,” Jataas says.

For the curious, Jataas suggests looking into trying pandan, a leafy plant with a nutty, vanilla-like flavor that is similar to ube. In fact, Jataas makes a soft-serve ice cream swirl of the two flavors—ube and pandan. “We’re super grateful,” Jataas says, “that we get to share the magic of [ube] with our community.”

Let the purple yam rain down.

(This article appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of Pastry Arts Magazine)