Taking the less traveled road: Ube-Coconut Cake

I often take the road less traveled even though I always get into trouble by doing that. Sometimes I drive kilometers and kilometers of empty but seem to be so promising road but end up in a road block with No Entry sign, but there are days too that I choose to take a dark and scary street but end up in my destination on time. Its just me and my passion for discovering things in my own way.

Baking is just like that too. If you stick to the old and comfortable techniques you will end up with mediocre cakes and pastries. But if you are brave enough to try and explore new things you will always come up with brilliant and authentic texture, flavor, design, etc .

For my birthday I was planning to do a Halo-Halo Cake, yep the halo-halo concoction of ube, langka(jackfruit), macapuno (sweetened young coconut),etc... but a day before I planned to bake my cake my langka turned grey in the fridge, maybe it wasn't tightly sealed. So I brainstormed on what to do.... I decided to do ube-coconut cake, thinking ube-macapuno is way overrated.

I made my Ube Cake adapted from this site but i kinda tweaked the recipe to suit my taste. The frosting is fluffy and really light pandan-flavored whipped cream and coated with aromatic toasted coconut. Piping and border is halayang ube buttercream made from scratch, topped with "halayang ube toblerone". 

This cake is light, creamy, 'ube-riffic', and smells really good. The smell is heavenly tropical. This is the kind of cake you want to eat in the beach. 

For your pandan whipped cream, whip your cream until its in soft peaks add some icing sugar, then the pandan essence (choose a good brand, the one thats not too strong, Ferna is good), add more icing sugar until stiff peaks and you have your desired sweetness.

The aromatic toasted coconut is just dessicated coconut toasted over low fire until the aroma is released then I let it cool then I mixed in a tablespoon of icing sugar.

Lastly, the ube halayang buttercream from scratch... I made my own halayang ube (its a long prcess just ask your mom or your grandma for the recipe)... so I first whipped my butter until its light and fluffy then fold in the halayang ube the added the icing sugar, add some violet food color to tint the buttercream. 

GARNISH: (Ube Toblerone)

Spoon some halayang ube with a tablespoon of melted butter and corn syrup to a cling wrap shape it into a long triangle log just like a toblerone then freeze it for thirty minutes. You can slice it into triangle shapes for garnish.

I know my cake looks pretty. HAH! But smell it and you will get hooked! So next time make sure that your cake doesn't only looks and tastes good make sure that its smells good too!


" We’ve all heard the warnings and we’ve ignored them. We push our luck. We roll the dice. It’s human nature. When we’re told not to touch something we usually do even if we know better. Maybe because deep down, we’re just asking for trouble. "