Ever wanted to make brownies, but wanted something with more of an asian twist to it? Well look no further because these ube brownies are sure to be right up your alley! I’ve been wanting to make ube brownies for a while now and finally decided to go ahead and bake some.
These brownies are partly inspired by the fact that there’s recently been so many Vietnamese coffeeshops opening up in my area that sell ube lattes! I borrowed from that flavor profile and incorporated some espresso chips into these brownies for an extra kick, but they’re entirely optional add ons!
Aside from the beautiful shade of purple that comes in these brownies, they’re also jam-packed with ube flavor and feature a shiny, paper-thin crust on top. They’re incredibly thick and fudgy due to the fact that there’s no leavening agent in this recipe and have quickly become my one of my favorite recipes to make.
What is ube?
At its core ube is a Filipino purple yam. There are countless desserts that utilizing this root vegetable to impart a gentle, earthy flavor and a deep purple color into them. The flavor itself is honestly quite mild, a little bit nutty, and is slightly sweet. Fresh ube is quite hard for me to find at my local Asian markets so I often opt for using ube extract that I can easily get off of Amazon,or I try to get some frozen, grated ube instead.
How do you get that paper-thin, shiny crust?
The shiny crust is formed when, during baking, the melted sugar mixes with egg whites to form a thin layer of meringue on top of the brownie. There’s a bunch of ways to achieve this and one of the tried and true methods that I employ in this recipe is to beat eggs and sugar together (for about 5 minutes or so) to ensure that the eggs and sugar are fully combined and that the sugar has dissolved in the egg whites before making the rest of the batter. Mixing sugar into the batter, later on, won’t produce as nice results because sugar doesn’t dissolve in fat, so the only way to achieve this is by utilizing the eggs.
Ingredients
Instructions
26 comments
Tried this recipe today and it is FANTASTIC! The only addition to the ingredients I made was adding 1/4 tsp kosher salt and didn’t use espresso chips. I was also too lazy to pull out the mixer, so I did different method of prepping the batter (following what I do for my favorite traditional brownie method). The flavor of these are addicting! This has become a new favorite in my house. Thank you!
Thanks for trying out the recipe! I’m really glad you liked it! Out of pure curiosity, what was the other method you used for prepping the batter? Just want to see if it’s something that I could try out some time haha but no worries at all if you want to keep it to yourself!
I melted the butter and sugar in a double boiler, removed from heat then gradually added sugar while whisking. Transferred mixture to another bowl (to not use a hot bowl when adding eggs) and whisked in room temperature eggs. Then whisked in ube extract and salt, mixed until batter was smooth. Folded in flour.
Hello!
I just found your website and I love it. I want to do this recipe but I only have ube halaya, should I just sub it in for the white sugar? Any tips I would appreciate
Hm I’m honestly not too sure since the sugar levels would also depend on how sweet the ube halaya you’re using is. Do you have any brown sugar or do you not have any kinds of sugars at all? Substituting all the sugar out with ube halaya is going to affect the texture of the brownies in the end, so if you have even a little bit of sugar I’d suggest slowly swapping it out little by little and experimenting that way. Let me know how it goes for you if you end up trying that though! I’m super curious how they’d turn out 😀
I can’t wait to try these out – saw them off of Subtle Asian Baking! I have access to frozen, grated ube which I imagine is less concentrated than the extract – how much of it would you recommend using compared to extract? Do you think it’ll mess with the texture of the recipe too much? Was thinking of just adding in some purple food colouring if the grated ube doesn’t add enough colour as well. 🙂
Thanks for sharing! I’ll let you know how it goes. <3
I haven’t tried this recipe using just grated ube before so I can’t really reply with confidence 🙁 but I feel like it would end up affecting the texture and maybe make it less fudgy and maybe more cake-like? This might be especially so because you might have to use more grated ube in the recipe to get the ube flavor to stand out vs using extract. I think overall I wouldn’t recommend using just grated ube, but if you’re able to get some ube extract then it should be fine to use that and add in maybe 1/4 cup of grated ube for an extra kick!
If you end up trying it out with just the grated ube definitely let me know how it goes! Excited to hear how those turn out 😀
Hi! I was only able to find ube powder not extract at my Asian grocery store, how would you recommend going about substituting the powder for the extract? :))
I wish I could give a better answer but I’m not too sure since I haven’t tried making these brownies with just ube powder before 🙁 but I’m assuming you could possibly substitute out some of the flour and replace it with the ube powder (maybe 1/4 cup or so). I don’t think the brownies will come out as purple or have as deep of an ube flavor though so I would definitely recommend trying to find ube extract somewhere else (maybe online) if you can!
Hi! I am so excited to try this, just bought ube extract! I was wondering if I can use semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of white chocolate chips?
I haven’t tried it out with semi-sweet chocolate chips yet, but off the top of my head the color of the brownies will be different! I believe the texture will be the same, but as for the flavor I don’t know if the semi-sweet chocolate chips will overpower the ube flavor or not 🙁
Would like to ask for the brand of the ube extract you used?
I use the Butterly brand of ube extract! This one to be exact
Can you add sourdough discard?
Are the espresso chips made from espresso beans or are you referring to espresso morsels chips?
I’m referring to the espresso morsel chips!
Is it possible to use real ube halaya jam instead of the extract?
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I just tried this recipe and it turned out amazing. It was soft and moist. The change I would do is to decrease the amount of Ube extract because my brownies were really dark, even after mixing it for 8 minutes. Other than that, it was great!