Updated 12/21/2020 with trick to make crinkles more pronounced. See recipe below.
Penny loves all things purple. So being able to bake a purple dessert made her very happy. My husband introduced me to ube desserts years ago but this was the first one I’ve baked. And it was a great place to start! These cookies are soft, fluffy and rich with the delicious ube flavor.
If you don’t know, ube is a purple yam that is commonly used in Filipino baking. It tastes sweet with strong vanilla flavor and mild nutty undertones. It’s sometimes mistaken for Taro but the two are not the same. Taro is a root with a much lighter color and less sweet flavor.
From start to finish these cookies only take about 45 minutes. We got our ube jam and extract online but you can find them at your local Asian market. Make sure to roll the dough really well into the powdered sugar to get a good coating. We ended up sprinkling some extra powdered sugar on top after they came out of the oven because we didn’t coat them enough. Also, plan for the dough to chill. We cleaned up and preheated the oven while the dough was in the freezer for about 15 minutes.
Bake tips by Age
2-4 years: Prep is really easy for this recipe. Let your little baker add and stir the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt) while you get everything else together. They can’t over-stir it! Once everything is prepped, they will have fun adding measured ingredients, watching the dough change to a deep purple color, and rolling the dough in the powdered sugar. Explain as you go which ingredients are being added and their measurements. Reading the recipe aloud is also helpful to keep them engaged.
5-7 years: Let them help with prepping all the ingredients in small containers. We use plastic takeout containers or kid bowls. If they aren’t ready to measure, they might help fetch and return the ingredients to the pantry. We find it helpful to always put away each ingredient after we’ve measured what we need. It makes the clean up at the end less overwhelming. Your little baker will have fun adding ingredients and helping cream the butter and sugars. Sometimes when the electric mixer gets too heavy to hold, P scrapes down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula in between adding ingredients. When it came time to form the cookies, I scooped and P shaped the balls and rolled them into the powder sugar.
How we baked it
Ube Crinkle Cookies
2 dozen cookies
Prep time: 30 minutes | Bake time: 12-15 | Total time: 45 minutes
Recipe adapted slightly from Keeping it Relle
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 cup ube halaya (jam)
1 teaspoon ube extract
Crinkle Coating
1 cup granulated sugar
1-2 cups powder sugar
Directions
- In a small mixing bowl whisk together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder and salt.
- Add room temperature butter and both sugars to a large bowl. Beat until mixture is light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- Add egg and beat until combined.
- Add ube jam and ube extract to the bowl and beat until well combined.
- Slowly add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. This means stop mixing when you can no longer see the flour and the dough is purple. Don’t over mix it! 🙂
- Chill dough in the freezer for 15 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350F (180C).
- Prepare cookie sheets with either nonstick spray or parchment paper.
- Using a tablespoon scoop dough into balls.
- Roll the balls in granulated sugar and then powder sugar and cover them completely.
- Place balls on cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool on rack.
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June Bug Bakers 
These are gorgeous! And coordinate with the plate – nice!
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Thank you!! The color pop is so fun to play with!
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