Ube Cakes for Mother's day

HO HO HO!!! Holiday Cake

Happy Holidays!

What is better than Filipino delicacy, a scrumptious ube cake, for Holiday dessert? 

Yesterday, 12/23/14, was not a good time to buy groceries for fresh ingredients.  Grocery stores are packed and lines were long.  I wanted to get the freshest ingredients as possible for ube cake.  I actually baked two ube cakes - one for my mom's dinner get-together tonight, 12/24/14 and one for my in-laws that we will take with us tomorrow for Christmas dinner.

I did not expect that my in-laws (mom, dad, and sister) would love a Filipino delicacy.  The actual loved my ube cake.  During their visit, I baked an ube cake that they can take with them back in Maryland.  This time it is decorated with the Christmas adornment rather than just covered with buttercream.

I am pleased with myself.  I am getting better with handling buttercream.  Getting a smooth surface has been a challenge.  Without photo-enhancement, the surface really came out clean and smooth.  

More Scrumptous Ube Cakes

There were three purple yam cakes ordered for Thanksgiving Day. All cakes were decorated the same, so I only took I picture of the three cakes.  

My foolproof recipe was a hit again.  The cakes were moist and dense.  It was so traditionally flavored that I received so many compliments that the cake was delicious.

Moist, dense ube cake

The ube cake turned up to be gorgeous.  Baking ube cake always possess a challenge.  When cakes cool down, the weight of the cake tends to rise and drop down as the cake settles, and it ruins the side of the cake.

The ube cake color is perfect!  It has the traditional purple hue of a Filipino ube cake.  

The ube cake is sprinkled with the toasted with ube cake.

Heavenly Ube Cake - Part 2

There are a variety of purple yam (a.k.a. "ube") cake recipes available online.  The recipe I used for this cake came from my grandparents, the former owners of F. Quinal Store & Bakery in the Southern Province of the Philippine Island that was established since 1949 through 2004, but with some modifications.  

The modifications to the recipe includes the following: ingredient substitutions, incorporating baking techniques that I learned from the Institute of Culinary Education, applying the Lean Six Sigma principles (Gage R&R and DOE) to provide consistent results and to identify and reduce variations in the measurement system, and applying Chemistry to balance acid and base during ingredient substitution.  After all, baking is science and art.  I am such a dork!

I finally perfected the recipe after so many Design of Experiments!  Changing one variable at a time to produce one light, moist, dense, and delicate piece of art.

This cake started with these gorgeous deep purple-colored yams that were cooked, boiled, and mashed.  Thanks to food processor.

Bake until perfection.  This batch of 6" cakes is trial number of something number.  I can't recall how many failed batches I made and how many happy stomachs it fed.  They were all pleased to be my Guiney pigs and asked to keep it coming.   However this batch (cooling on the rack) came flat and gorgeously smooth.

 Another batch...  Consistent result!  No dome and / or sinking in the middle.

This ube cake recipe has a sponge or chiffon cake texture.  

This recipe is a keeper!  

It was dense and moist!

I find it a compliment when this home baked cake is compared to renowned commercial bakeries, such as Red Ribbon and Goldilocks.

I have to continue practicing to perfect smooth buttercream covering. 

I am not avid of food coloring, but for the sake of traditional “purple” ube cake I have to raise the purple food coloring quantity in my baking to accentuate the purple hue of the purple yam. 

Heavenly Ube Cake

Happy New Year!

A picture of purple yam ("ube") sponge cake.  Ube cake is filled with young coconut (a.k.a macapuno) buttercream.

The ube cake was covered in ube buttercream. It was the best batch of ube cake ever.  As I cut the layers to stack the cakes, cake crumbs sticks to the knife, which is an indication of moist, dense cake.

Happy New Year!

Summer Wedding

My husband's cousin (Cindy) e-mailed me asking if I can make an authentic Filipino cake - ube cake. Ube cake is a purple sweet yam cake, which is one of Filipino's favorite delicacy. In my experience, ube cake is very challenging to make as it requires mashed, or finely grated purple yam that tends to absorb the liquid in the batter and could result in a dry cake.

For this gorgeous wedding cake, the cake is a sponge “ube” cake filled with Filipino buttercream and layers of macapuno. Macapuno is a young coconut preserve.



The cake is adorned with marshmallow-butter-flavored fondant. The flowers are chrysanthemum orchids, airbrushed and dusted with edible, African violet petal dust.

The challenge for this cake it to maintain it’s shape due to the extreme heat wave of the summer. The temperature outside the wedding venue was 110 deg F and the weather inside the building was 70 deg F (not accounting the body heat from at least 150 guests). My concern was the “will the buttercream melt and ruined the shape of the cake?” Overall, the cake was moist and tasted authentically Filipino. The bride, groom, and guests were very pleased with the taste and right balance of the sweetness.

No wasted cake and no leftovers to bring home!

Remarks from Cindy:

Thanks Ev! the cake was a success! Chrissie Seto and Alan Perez and their guests really enjoyed the cake!