Filipinos have long had a love affair with ube, but it’s only recently the rest of the world is catching on to the allure of the vivid purple yam. Pronounced “oo-beh”, ube is often mistaken for purple sweet potato, but while the latter is dry and starchy, ube is moist with an earthy, nutty, vanilla-like flavour.
Ube’s distinctive heliotrope hue contributes to its broadening appeal. Trend forecaster WGSN earmarked ube as a top food trend for 2023, though it’s been building for years. In 2022, an ube liqueur from Filipino producer Destileria Barako claimed the “best cream” title at the World Liqueur awards and two years ago, in New York, Kora bakery, known for their ube brioche doughnuts, amassed a 10,000-person waitlist.
In the Philippines, ube is most popularly consumed grated and cooked with milk (or coconut milk), butter and sugar. This transforms it into a thick spread known as halayang ube, or sometimes ube jam. Halayang ube is a key component to halo-halo, the icy Philippine dessert, and is also used widely in cakes, pastries, ice-cream, kakanin (rice cakes) and ginataang bilo-bilo (glutinous rice balls in coconut milk).
But in Australia, Filipino chefs, bakers and bartenders are remixing the yam into classic local sweets.
Doughnuts have been a gateway pastry to showcase ube’s flavour and colour. At Don’t Doughnuts in Sydney, you’ll find brioche doughnuts filled with ube cheesecake, while Pecks Road Cheat Meals in outer Melbourne’s take is a triple-serve of the purple yam: ube glaze, ube pastry-cream filling and ube whipped cream on top.
Meanwhile at Brisbane cafe Dovetail Social, Bacolod-born Filipina owner Rejoice Thomson serves the “yamington” doughnut – a coconut-dusted ube-flavoured creation, crowned with a perfect circle of creme caramel – and they’re gluten-free. Thomson’s husband has coeliac disease and over the years she’s developed a high tea menu’s worth of gluten-free cakes and pastries. Thomson says her customers, who are mostly non-Filipinos, are drawn to her ube creations. “They say: ‘What is this flavour? This is crazy!’”
Fresh ube is hard to come by in Australia. But even if he can get his hands on it, Miko Aspiras of Don’t Doughnuts says the flavour and colour simply don’t compare to ube from the Philippines. So the Manila-born pastry-chef and owner has learned to work with ube in frozen, jam and essence form. He says it sometimes takes a mix of two kinds of ube to achieve a consistent result.
Besides doughnuts, Pecks Road Cheat Meals has also dabbled in ube hot cross buns. Last Easter, they were inundated with orders for the hybrid creations. “We ended up doing 500 hot cross buns in that one day, [and had] to make another 200 or so just to keep up with the demand,” says chef-owner Albin Lawang. The purple buns will be returning for Easter this year.
At Serai, in Melbourne, ube has been used to reimagine a nostalgic, but controversial ice-cream: the rainbow paddle pop. The halo-halo-inspired stick, complete with coconut, jackfruit, jellies and cornflakes, is Pinoy happiness on a stick. Bartender Ralph Libo-on has added ube to Serai’s cocktail list too. The Ube Wan Kenube is a spin on a Brandy Alexander, while the Yam Jam Slam uses coconut and toasted latik (coconut caramel) to add Philippine flavour to a mudslide mocktail.
But is there a danger that ube could become the next quinoa (a staple grain that became expensive for its traditional consumers, thanks to rapid popularisation in the west)? It’s unlikely, says Anna Manlulo, founder of Filipino Food Movement Australia.
“There is no need to worry about running out of ube. In fact, this growing demand for ube can be beneficial for ube farmers back in the Philippines, and we also recognise ube is grown outside the Philippines too.”
And it goes further than this. Ube is a great entry point for the uninitiated to sample Philippine cuisine and a versatile ingredient for Filipino cooks, too.
With its vibrant colour, the yam is no doubt an attention seeker and now it is getting its due.
