Ube Bun Recipe – Experimenting with Flavour Profiles

Recently a group of apprentices formulated a new Ube bun recipe while attending a Sweet Yeast, Basic Artisan, and Fillings class with trainer Rod. The students were encouraged to experiment with flavour profiles and looked to their Filipino heritage for inspiration.

At BITA we encourage experimentation and creativity. As an industry owned RTO, we believe the future of bakers in Australia is in our hands which means we encourage our apprentices to try new things when they visit the BITA Kitchen.

The students started out with caramel bananas, mango, and toasted coconut, before moving on to Ube and achieving interesting results like a vibrant purple colour and a subtle but sweet taste.

For those who don’t know what Ube is (pronounced “ooo-beh”), it is a purple-coloured yam native to Southeast Asia. The vegetable gives off a mild-sweet flavour, coconut-like aroma, and vibrant purple colour when used in cooking and is popularly used in the production of Filipino sweets.  

Ube is often confused with the purple sweet potato, Okinawan, due to their colour similarities. However, they are slightly different, Ube has a more nutty-vanilla flavour and is quite moist as opposed to Okinawan which is quite sticky. When it comes to external appearance, the Okinawan skin white, smooth, and eatable, whereas Ube skin is rough, bark-like and not pleasant to eat.

Ube has a distinctively nutty-vanilla flavour with a dark bark-like skin and flesh that varies in colour from creamy white to deep lavender. Ube is also loaded with antioxidants, vitamins A and C, and has high levels of potassium.

As you can see in the photographs the students mixed the Ube into a sweet bun dough creating the vibrant purple coloured Ube bun recipe. The dough was then used to make a variety of products including finger buns and plaits.

The students found that adding Ube to the dough created a subtle but sweet flavour enhanced further when paired with custard. As you can see in the photos, adding Ube makes the dough a bright purple colour that remains throughout the process of baking.

When asked about the experience some students commented that the flavours reminded them of home while other’s commented on how the Ube flavour reminded them of vanilla.