This Yam Is the New Jam

ube (which looks like a potato with purple insides) sits cut open in a bowl

Who knew a root crop could be a key dessert ingredient? Filipinos did. The Philippines is famous for its diverse and unique flavor combinations, especially when it comes to sweets. And one of the most-used flavors for desserts comes from a purple yam called ube (pronounced “ooh-bay”).

Ube is a food native to Southeast Asia. It has a mild taste, somewhat like vanilla, and is definitely sweeter than other root crops. On the outside it’s often confused with taro root, but there’s a pretty important distinction between the two: ube is bright purple all the time. Though some taro has a slightly purple coloring to it, ube is a much deeper, more luscious purple both as a root and as an ingredient.

Here are five delicious ube desserts from the Philippines.

Puto

Puto is a steamed cake. It’s a little gooey to the touch and falls apart in your mouth and has a mild flavor. Like lots of Filipino desserts, it usually comes with a bit of processed cheese on top.

Piaya

Piaya is a fried flatbread filled with muscovado sugar (a dark brown sugar with a lot of molasses in it). To make your piaya ube-flavored, you can simply add ube flavoring, but you’re welcome to use fresh ube or ube halaya, which is basically an ube jam.

Mamon

Even though most Filipinos don’t have ovens in their homes, they love baked goods. Mamon is a traditional Filipino sponge cake that is sometimes ube-flavored. The cakes are sold in individual packages or fresh from local bakeries. Filipino bakery chains such as Red Ribbon and Goldilocks also make ube cake rolls (similar to Swiss rolls) and good old regular cakes out of the yam. It’s a vibrantly colorful addition to your party food.

Ice Cream

Though the Philippines doesn’t have easy access to fresh dairy products, you are sure to find plenty of unique ice cream flavors there, many of which use ube as a base flavor. You can get plain ube, ube with beans, and even ube with cheese. You can eat this ice cream in lots of different ways. You can eat it straight from the tub, in a white bread roll (giving a whole new meaning to “ice cream sandwich”), or in halo-halo.

Halo-Halo

a cup of ice cream covered in ube and other vibrant foods

Halo-halo, a shaved ice treat and the king of all Filipino desserts, actually has two ube elements: it’s topped with a scoop of ube ice cream, and a spoonful of ube halaya is mixed in with the shaved ice and other ingredients. Halo-halo literally translates to “mix-mix,” and that’s exactly what you get: a mix of beans, tapioca balls, gelatin, bananas, jackfruit, and leche flan, among other things. It’s the perfect blend of cold, creamy, crunchy, and soft, with a powerhouse of flavors.