How to tell if a particular flavor has entered mainstream American culinary vernacular:
Find said flavor at Trader Joe's in the form of cookies, chips and/or ice cream.
Ask your dad, who was previously unfamiliar with said flavor, to ask you if you've tried the cookies, chips, and/or flavored ice cream at Trader Joe's.
Find said flavor as a non-alcoholic drink option at a Las Vegas buffet.
Ube, the purple yam found throughout Southeast Asia, is a common ingredient in many sweet and savory desserts and snacks in the Philippines. In the United States, ube desserts were mostly exclusive to Filipino restaurants, bakeries, and Asian markets. But in the last year, I've found the subtle, earthy flavor of vanilla everywhere, as a ube coconut drink at the Wynn Las Vegas buffet, as a mochi pancake mix, cookie and ice cream flavoring at Trader Joe's, and as the ingredient star in desserts throughout Los Angeles.
Christian Esteban, who runs Chaaste in Pasadena with his family, laughs when I ask him about ube's arrival in American grocery stores and restaurants.
“Ube in the Philippines is a natural thing,” Esteban says during my recent visit to his market. “They have all kinds of ube, from rice cakes, they come in little chocolate bars, it's all there is ube.”
Nougat stuffed with ube custard at Chaaste Family Market
Chaaste Family Market's Mama San's Nougat, a sweet banana-filled lumpia, is deep-fried before being filled with ube custard.
(Silvia Razgova / Los Angeles Times)
Chaaste is a Filipino market and cafe where you'll find coolers full of frozen drinks and desserts and a hot bar with everything from lumpia to pancit and curries. There are a large number of ube products on the market, including crackers and prepared ube custard. If you're in the mood for halo halo, there's ube ice cream hidden between layers of gelatin, sweet beans, and shaved ice. I'm happy to enjoy them all, but my favorite ube product at the moment is the custard-filled turon.
Pastry chef Ariel Schindledecker says that among all turones (banana lumpia), including churro rolled in cinnamon sugar, jackfruit and Nutella, ube cream is the best-selling dessert on the market.
“I think it's because of the ube craze that's going on right now,” he says.
I watch as Schindledecker prepares a batch of custard with egg yolks, cane sugar, coconut milk, flour, and cornstarch. Add most of the ingredients, including a few drops of ube extract, without measuring.
“Here we are tantsa, tantssa,” he says. “Tantsa in Filipino culture… Filipinos don't really use measuring cups, they just feel it,” adds Christian. “That's tantsa. [Ariel] I learned the Filipino way.”
Christian's mother, Susan, who opened the store in 1987, taught Schindledecker how to make nougat. She sprinkles raw banana with sugar and then wraps it in sheets of puff pastry from the Philippines. The banana should be ripe enough to transform into a soft custard-like filling. Christian says that he, his mother, Schindledecker, and his brothers simply know when a banana is ready. Once fried, the buns appear lacquered with a dark brown glaze that gives the nougat an extra crunchy touch.
“The sugar you see on the outside is not a glaze,” explains Schindledecker. “It's actually the sugar that comes out of the banana and the sugar during the cooking process.”
The wrapping technique, developed by Susan over decades, allows sugar to permeate the shell, creating what looks like a wet sugar glaze around the outside.
Once the turón is fried, Schindledecker cuts them in half and uses a syringe to inject the finished ube cream into the center. Barney the dinosaur's purple filling spills over the top of the roll, creating large masses of soft, cold ube custard against the banana. The effect is similar to that of a good cream-filled donut, with notes of vanilla in the ube balancing the sweet banana and sugar-caramelized shell.
“The polecat is what makes us famous,” says Schindledecker. “I've only tried a few other places, but I feel like this is the best.”
I would have to agree with her.
Wanderlust Creamery Ube Malted Crispy Ice Cream
A scoop of crunchy malted ube ice cream in a ube cone at Wanderlust Creamery in Pasadena.
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
When Wanderlust Creamery owner Adrienne Borlongan was a child, her mother bought her two cakes every year for her birthday. One was vanilla or chocolate cake and the other was ube.
“The kids at school didn't want to touch the purple cake because they thought it was strange,” Borlongan says. “They'd say, 'Oh, it tastes like a melted candle.' “I think it’s delicious.”
Now, Borlongan says he can almost guarantee that every kid in his Los Angeles scoop shops will have a purple rim around their mouth from his crunchy ube malt ice cream.
Although known for creating flavors like mango sticky rice, yuzu cream, and real milk ramisu tea, the crispy ube malt is the one that took Borlongan the longest to develop. And she alone decided to incorporate ube into her line of flavors after her parents insisted.
“I got all this criticism from them,” he says. “'You're going to open an international ice cream shop and you don't have any Filipino flavor in the case?' The least you can do is ube'.”
But she didn't want to just make purple ice cream and call it ube. She needed to find the right balance of flavors and textures that wouldn't overpower the delicate flavor of the yam. She also wanted to use real ube in addition to the extract.
“The real ube, the real vegetable, does not taste like this [extract] not at all,” he says. “Fresh ube is not available in the United States. “All the flavors that people most associate with ube when it comes to mind come from the extract, so I have to use extract.”
I think about the ube desserts I've had over the years. Custards, cakes, puddings, ice creams and custards had a distinctive earthy and nutty flavor with hints of sweet vanilla.
After months of development, Borlongan landed on an eggless custard base that incorporates preserved ube jam, ube extract, malted milk, and dried malted milk powder fragments. It is a formula that guarantees that ube is the dominant flavor. She is also an homage to the Thrifty Chocolate Malted Krunch ice cream she ate frequently as a child.
“I think this flavor is a reflection of growing up in a different culture than American,” Borlongan says. “I feel like this brings everything together in one ice cream flavor.”
The malted milk acts as a flavor enhancer for the ube, and the roasted milky powder brings the yam to the fore. Borlongan incorporates dried milk powder for a familiar crunch and even more malted milk flavor. Depending on how long ago the ube malt crisp was made, the pieces of dried milk powder will go from crunchy to chewy as they melt into the purple ice cream. The best scoops incorporate both textures, like the cracked top of a blonde or a brownie floating in ice cream.
If you want to guarantee the crunch of your ube malted crunch ball, Borlongan has a new cookbook that includes the recipe.
“I'm really, really happy that this is happening,” he says of the current ube craze. “I wish this had happened when I was a kid… it makes me happy. The child in me makes me smile.”
