Purple yam — a starchy tuber with a vividly purple color and a mild, slightly nutty, vanilla-like flavor, central to Filipino desserts.
Ube (Dioscorea alata) is often confused with taro or the orange-fleshed sweet potato sold as "purple yam" in some markets, but it's its own distinct tuber, prized above all for its striking purple color as much as its flavor. Boiled and mashed with condensed milk and butter, it becomes ube halaya, a jam-like spread eaten on its own or used as a filling and topping in other desserts.
Ube shows up throughout the dessert table — folded into halo-halo, swirled into leche flan, mixed into puto batter, and used as a filling in pastries. Outside the Philippines, ube is most commonly found frozen (grated or as halaya) or as a flavoring extract and powder.
Recipes on Pancit.com that call for ube.
Layered Filipino shaved ice with sweet beans, fruits, jellies, ube, leche flan, and evaporated milk.
A silky steamed egg custard in liquid caramel — the centerpiece of every Filipino fiesta dessert table.
A silky coconut milk pudding studded with sweet corn, topped with toasted latik.
Soft, fluffy steamed rice cakes — the everyday companion to pancit and dinuguan.
Vividly layered glutinous rice cake in purple, yellow, and white, topped with coconut curds.
Crisp fried spring rolls of saba banana and jackfruit in a caramelized brown sugar shell.
Sweet, vividly purple ube yam jam cooked slow with coconut and condensed milk.
