Go Back
How to Use Ube for Baking This Christmas Season
Step into nearly any Filipino American bakery, and an array of purple-colored pastries will be lined in front of you.
Purple is the color of many Filipino desserts, and that’s because of ube — a purple yam native to the Philippines and practically the country’s national dessert flavor. It’s known for its subtly sweet and nutty taste, and most recently for gaining acclaim as the “Most Trendy Flavor of 2024”!
It’s also a staple ingredient in many cherished Filipino desserts: it’s used as a topping for the refreshing halo-halo, transformed into the sweet jam ube halaya, baked into soft, pillowy bread like pandesal, or added as a flavoring into creamy ice cream.
Now that Christmas is fast approaching, how can you include the ube flavor in your holiday baking? Whether it’s a classic Filipino dessert, or an ube-enhanced version of a traditional Christmas sweet treat, here are several creative ways to use ube in your baking this Christmas season:
1. Ube and Coconut Cheesecake
Who doesn’t love a good cheesecake? Even better: who doesn’t love a good cheesecake that you don’t have to bake and is flavored with ube?
This ube coconut cheesecake is the perfect addition to a Christmas party. Creating a whole cheesecake from scratch can take an entire day — baking and cooling time included. This recipe is a unique take on the classic dessert, with an ube flavor. The only difference? It’s no frills and easier to make! Read it here.
2. Another cheesecake — if you want a challenge
Say, what if you still want a cheesecake, but are up for the challenge of making one from scratch? Look no further: there is a Creamy Ube Cheesecake that needs your baking.
This recipe is yet another creative reinterpretation of the classic cheesecake, subverting the well-loved dessert with ube flavor. As a bonus, it includes coconut in the crust for a more complex texture.
The total baking time of creamy ube cheesecake (including cooking and cooling) is over 9 hours. That’s a lot of time, but that means that all the different flavors can mesh and fuse into a delicious treat. Read the full recipe here. We guarantee this dish to be a favorite at your next Christmas party.
3. Moist Ube Banana Bread
Part of the experience of a Christmas dessert is what you eat it with and the people around you. For example, Christmas cookies are served, they’re dipped in milk and eaten with friends and family.
What might this scene look like if we had an ube-flavored dessert instead? A glass of milk, friends and family, and a most ube banana bread, perhaps?
Fila Manila’s moist ube banana bread recipe is perfect for dipping in milk, and, as Fila Manila Founder Jake Deleon says, it’s a “perfect gift to share with others and enjoy together.” Read our recipe here to create this exact treat, perfect for the season of giving.
4. Ube Stuffed Croissant Waffles
We’ve all been here before: you arrive at the dessert selection of your Christmas party, and find that there are too many choices. Pies, cobblers, toffee, cookies — the list goes on.
What if you didn’t have to choose? Our next recipe saves you from decision fatigue and combines two desserts in one.
Our Ube Stuffed Croissant Waffles recipe is a delicious sweet treat for anyone who can't pick between having a waffle or croissant! Read the recipe here, the perfect choice for anyone struggling to decide.
5. Ube cookies
It’s tradition around the world to leave warm cookies and milk near the Christmas tree (so that Santa can eat them after delivering the presents, of course!).
This Christmas, it might be time to give Santa a little surprise. Rather than leaving your standard chocolate chip cookies to the taking, what about some ube-flavored sweet treats instead?
You can make teak & thyme’s soft and chewy ube cookies, made ube halaya and white chocolate (yes, it’s quite literally, a chocolate chip cookie but in ube form!).
You can also make these ube thumbprint cookies, by lavbakes, as a reinterpretation of the classic linzer cookie, with a touch of ube.
6. Ube pie
Everybody eats pie for Christmas, especially in America.
Of the 44 most iconic Christmas desserts curated by Taste of Home, seven of them are pies!
Now, how about an ube pie? Our recipe for choice is Iankewks’s, made with Fila Manila’s very own Ube Halaya.
Ube pie has always been a popular dish in the Philippines already, popularized by major fast-food chain, Jollibee (which also has branches here in the U.S.), Maybe it’s high time we exalt the dessert to the level of classic Christmas pie status?
7. Ube brownies
Bet you’ve never seen a purple brownie before.
These eye-catching sweet treats exist, in fact. And this recipe in particular is colored using ube.
It’s a bright, fun, and colorful twist on the classic sweet treat — a guaranteed hit at your next Christmas party!
8. Ube Rice Pudding
Rice pudding is often a Christmas dessert classic. Add ube and chocolate flavors to the mix, and it gets even better.
This recipe from Ladybug Kitchen is creamy, silky, and smooth — a delicious new twist on the Christmas dessert staple.
What’s the key ingredient for these recipes?
But here’s the most important part: to make any of these dishes, you need an ube halaya (which means ube jam).
Our pick is Fila Manila’s very own ube jam with coconut, made with all natural ingredients.
Learn more about the product here.