Ube Easter Cake

Recipe: A Filipino Purple Yam Spring Cake

Ube Easter cake is a gorgeous Filipino-American fusion dessert that uses the beloved Filipino purple yam (ube) transformed into a spectacular springtime celebration cake perfect for Easter gatherings. While ube has been integral to Filipino cuisine for centuries, appearing in everything from haluhalo (shaved ice dessert) to ube halaya (sweet jam), it's only recently gained widespread popularity. Ube is a purple yam native to some Asian countries with dark brown-purple skin and a striking purple flesh. When cooked, it develops a creamy, nutty flavour with distinct notes of vanilla, completely different from regular sweet potatoes, taro, or even our local colocasia. This particular ube Easter cake recipe is wonderfully light, fluffy, and packed with ube flavour thanks to ube extract in both the cake layers and the Swiss meringue buttercream. The ube jam in the cake serves as the cake filling, while the coconut macapuno topping adds that quintessential Filipino touch. Macapuno are jelly-like coconut strings made from a special Filipino coconut variety, and they're sweet, tender, and loaded with coconut flavour. For Easter, you can go all out and decorate with colourful candies and chocolates of all sorts.