Ube Cake

Ube (pronouned ooh-beh), is a purple yam commonly used in Filipino desserts. Some describe the ube flavour to be a mix between pistachio and vanilla, and it is deeelicious!

This ube cake recipe took me several tries for me to get the best texture with the richness of the ube. There’s nothing worse than a purple ube looking cake with only a faint whiff of ube.

The ube jam makes the cake rich in ube flavour. I usually buy this brand at my local Asian supermarket.

The mistake I made from my first ube cake was that I pulverised the ube jam with a stick blender. It was hard from being in the fridge and I wanted to make sure it was well incorporated into the cake mixture.

Big mistake.

The liquid to dry ingredient ratio was off, and what resulted was a soggy cake that would break apart if I tried to cut it into cake layers.

Learning from that mistake, I let the ube jam rest at room temperature for a while and used a fork to mash up the mixture. This works very well! You can taste the slight starchy richness of the ube halaya that makes it stand out from other cakes made using only ube extract.

In this recipe I added 2 tsp of ube extract. This adds the lingering ube aroma to the cake. Both the ube hayala and ube extract comes preloaded with ube extract so it will give your cake a beautiful purple hue.

Made using the tang mian method, it has a moist, light cottony texture. The tang mian (cooked dough) method coats the cake flour with oil before adding anything else. By coating the flour with fats, it inhibits the formation of gluten. This means a beautifully fluffy bite that melts in your mouth. Check out this post for the science behind the tang main method.

If you’re interested in more cakes using the tang mian method, you can try the chocolate cake recipe, classic cotton sponge recipe, or the coffee cake recipe.

Give this recipe a go! I promise you’ll never want to go back to just a plain sponge. Make sure you tag your beautiful creation with @ultimateomnoms on Instagram so I can give you a shoutout!

Ube Cake Recipe

5 from 2 votes

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Ingredients

  

Egg yolk mixture

• 65 g oil
• 180 g cake flour
• 190 g coconut milk
• 60 g sugar
• 1/2 cup ube halaya (ube jam)
• 6 egg yolks
• 2 tsp ube extract
• 1 pinch salt

Egg white mixture

• 6 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 130 g sugar

Instructions

 

• Heat the oil in a small saucepan using low-med heat. Sift in the cake flour and mix
• Add the coconut milk, sugar and mix. Take the saucepan off the heat
• Add the egg yolks in one at a time, whisking between each one
• Add a pinch of salt
• Mix in the ube jam and ube extract
• In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until foamy and add the cream of tartar. Add the sugar in batches and whisk until the egg whites reach stiff peaks
• Preheat the oven to 150ºC and prepare your hot water bath
• Add one third of the egg white to the yolk batter and mix well. Using a spatula, fold the remaining egg white in two batches. Do so gently and thoroughly so no streaks of egg white remain
• Pour the batter into the lined 8” cake pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Tap the pan against the tabletop to get rid of any large air bubble
• Put the cake pan into the hot water bath, ensuring that the water height reaches at least a third of the cake pan
• Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour 25min or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean
• Remove from the oven and tap the pan against the tabletop a few times to prevent shrinkage. Transfer to cool on a wire rack pan for 10min before unmoulding