• yaleksly on January 09, 2025

  Take care to pay attention to the ingredients/pantry section in this book. She mentions using "ube paste"; this is actually ube extract (flavoring paste/extract) and is usually quite thin in the bottle. I use the Butterfly brand, and Osborne recommends the same. It is accessible through a well-stocked Asian grocery; in California it seems to be available at Seafood City and H-Mart, and online on Amazon and Weee!. It is NOT ube halaya/ube jam, which one might confuse as or think substitutable for ube paste due to its thick consistency. The ube paste/ube extract is typically needed to achieve coloring and strong flavor, as ube as a raw ingredient can be rather mild in both color and flavor.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Marbled ube banana bread

  • Marsaluna on May 22, 2024

    Not a success. I had all the ingredients except the Ube paste. Unfortunately this is apparently the most important ingredient, the one that gives the bread its color and taste. After it was baked, the two batters —one containing Ube + banana and one with only banana—were indistinguishable light brown. I printed out the picture in the book and put it on top the loaf so my guests could see how pretty it was supposed to be. The bread was not very flavorful. Maybe my bananas were not sweet, but the Ube jam didn’t seem to have much flavor either.

  • Kinhawaii on November 07, 2024

    Ok- but I don’t dislike ube but don’t love it either- so a fan may feel differently. The ube extract I had made the ube part a very dark purple. I could taste the difference between the ube banana part & the banana part. I cooked it in a long narrow pan (USA sandwich cocktail loaf) & it took about an hour. The banana part tasted like a regular banana bread.

  • Mady124 on June 01, 2026

    Super easy and delicious.

• Buttermilk berry bibingka

  • eclairea on March 09, 2026

    This was wonderful, bright and fresh take on bibingka. Brought it to work and it was gobbled up immediately with rave reviews. Would make again!

• Strawberry rambutan bars

  • caillahess on March 24, 2026

    Do not do the initial bake for 30 min, the base was basically burnt and I had to remake that portion. I started checking around 15 minutes instead. The second bake took a bit longer, closer to 40 minutes in my oven.

• Mango sago brûlée

  • yaleksly on July 27, 2024

    Amazing. I LOVE mango sago, and the idea of combining it into a custard and brûlée-ing it is a wondrous, genius thought. The recipe came together very quickly, but unfortunately I found myself without a kitchen torch so I had to use the broiler, which isn't my favorite method as it is tricky to get it done right. If you were to use the broiler, I would skip setting the custards out at room temp before adding the sugar, and just go straight to sugar + broiling. I did get a nice caramel top, but my custards warmed all the way through with how long broiling took. No matter, it was still delicious and I'd be happy to make this again with improved technique (and a new kitchen torch!).

• Ube cheese pandesal

  • takemori on July 01, 2024

    Used ube extract since I couldn't find ube paste - tasted great! Be sure to whisk ube halaya well when first incorporating into the yeasts mixture to avoid any big chunks if you're buying a jam from the store.

  • yaleksly on July 27, 2024

    These are so effing delicious. Perfect balance of sweet and savory. I used Pamana Halayang Ube, Butterfly Ube Flavoring, and Monterey Jack cheese as I had extra to use up. I did have some trouble with the filling leaking, but that's likely my fault and not the recipe. Would make again and again.

• Eat Your Books

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