Ube Crinkles

Anyone following the cookie recipes in my blog will know that an unusual ingredient is the most likely thing to get me to try a new recipe. The other night, LA, one of our emergency doctors, challenged me to come up with ube cookies. At first blush, this seemed crazy but when I went to the Internet, I was able to find several possible recipes to try.

One of the biggest challenges I had was coming up with the ingredients. Most of us have never even heard of ube. It is a yam that is amazingly purple, colored like a beet. It is very popular in the Philippines. The first time I heard of it, was when I ate ice cream made out of it. Naturally purple and very tasty.

This is the kind of recipe that you will only be able to try if you live somewhere with lots of Filipinos or you are willing to go online and have ube jam and ube flavoring sent to you.

I have made chocolate crinkle cookies many times so the idea of a bright purple crinkle cookie really grabbed me. This is fun cookie baking and eating!

Recipe By:

bakehappy.net

Yield:

30 cookies

Directions:

3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter
½ cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cups ube jam / halaya,  *SEE NOTES
2 teaspoons ube flavoring,  **SEE NOTES
2 cups powdered sugar ***SEE NOTES

Directions:

1. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

2. Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

3. Beat in eggs.

4. Beat in ube jam and ube flavoring.

5. Gradually stir in dry ingredients.

6. Cover bowl with cling wrap and chill for 4 hours or overnight.**** SEE NOTES

7. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

8. Scoop 2 tablespoon balls of dough with an ice cream scoop. Roll dough balls in powdered sugar. Arrange baking sheets covered with parchment.

9. Bake about 14 minutes until just set. Of course, as in all cookies, don’t over-bake.

Notes:

* Original recipe called for Ube Jam from Mountain Maid Training Center. It is made with ube and sugar but also milk. If you Google “ube jam,” you come up with recipes that mostly contain milk and butter and are more like pudding than jam, like we would put on toast. The jam I bought at Seafood City, my local Filipino market, has just ube and sugar. That is what I used for these cookies.

** When I first saw “ube flavoring” in this recipe, I thought, “Oh, sure.” But, sure enough, at Seafood City, they had McCormick Ube Flavoring. Amazing from my white American perspective.

*** I alway sift my powdered sugar. I just like it better without lumps.