Recipe · Nº01 Ube
Ube crinkle cookies
Soft, slightly cakey cookies rolled in icing sugar. In the oven they spread and crack, and the purple dough shows through the white coating. The Filipino classic is made with ube halaya, but we use pure ube powder, so there's no jam to cook first.
- 20 min hands-on
- 2 h in the fridge
- About 20 cookies
The recipe
About 20 crinkles.
The dough is soft and sticky when you mix it, and that's how it should be. Two hours in the fridge firms it up enough to roll into balls. We roll them in granulated sugar first and icing sugar second, which gives the sharpest white cracks.
- 01
Bloom the ube
Whisk the ube powder into the warm milk to a thick, smooth paste. Leave it for 10 minutes so the powder can soak up the milk.
- 02
Mix the dry ingredients
Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
- 03
Cream the butter
Beat the butter and caster sugar for 2 to 3 minutes until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the ube paste and vanilla. The mixture may look a little split at this point. The flour brings it back together.
- 04
Add the flour and chill
Fold in the dry ingredients with a spatula until you see no more streaks. The dough will be soft, closer to a thick cake batter than a cookie dough. Cover the bowl and chill it for at least 2 hours, or overnight.
- 05
Shape and coat
Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F), or 160°C with fan, and line two baking trays with baking paper. Scoop the dough into balls of about 30 g, roughly a heaped tablespoon. Roll each ball in the granulated sugar, then give it a thick coat of icing sugar.
- 06
Bake
Put the balls on the trays with 5 cm between them. Bake one tray at a time for 10 to 12 minutes, until the cookies have spread and cracked and the edges are set. The centers should still look slightly underdone.
- 07
Cool
Leave the cookies on the tray for 5 minutes, then move them to a wire rack. They firm up as they cool.
Why crinkles crack, and other tips
- The coating does the cracking. The sugar dries out the surface of each ball while the inside stays soft. When the baking powder lifts the cookie in the oven, that dry skin tears open and the purple dough shows through the gaps.
- Keep the dough cold. Warm dough spreads before the surface has time to set, and you end up with flat purple discs under a grey haze of sugar. If your kitchen is warm, put the shaped balls back in the fridge for 15 minutes before they go in the oven.
- Don't skip the granulated sugar. It draws moisture from the dough, so the icing sugar on top stays white instead of melting into the cookie.
- Take them out while the centers look soft. Browning dulls the purple, and ube shows its color best in a cookie that hasn't dried out.
- Keep the sugar as it is. Our ube powder is unsweetened, so the sugar in the dough carries the flavor and keeps the cookies soft.
- Storing and freezing. The cookies keep for 4 days in a tin. You can also freeze the dough balls before rolling them in sugar. Let them sit for 10 minutes, coat them and add a minute or two to the baking time.
- Make ice cream sandwiches. Two crinkles with a scoop of ube ice cream in between make a very good one.
- New to ube? What is ube? explains how it differs from taro, and our guide to baking with ube has the ratios we use for other cookies and cakes.
Purple under white
The cracks are where the color shows.
Questions
Ube cookie questions.
What are ube crinkles?
Soft cookies rolled in icing sugar that crack open in the oven, so the purple dough shows through a white coating. They are popular in the Philippines, where they are usually made with ube halaya. This version uses pure ube powder, so you don't have to cook a jam first.
Why didn't my ube crinkles crack?
The dough was probably too warm, or the sugar coating was too thin. Chill the dough for at least 2 hours, roll the balls in granulated sugar before the icing sugar, and only bake them once the oven is fully heated.
How much ube powder goes into ube cookies?
About 10% of the flour weight. In this recipe that is 20 g of ube powder for 200 g of flour, which makes around 20 cookies. A 100 g pouch is enough for five batches.
Can I make the cookie dough a day ahead?
Yes. The dough keeps for up to 2 days in the fridge, covered. It gets quite firm, so let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes before you roll it into balls.
