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Ube Muffins with toasted walnuts, brown sugar and vanilla glaze.
Catalina Castravet Catalina Castravet
21

Last updated on June 18th, 2021 at 05:44 pm

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Ube Muffins – Naturally Purple!

Ube Muffins are insanely delicious and naturally purple. Topped with toasted walnuts and brown sugar these are fun to make and fun to eat.

These Purple Muffins are so pretty and delicious, it will be a hit for themed parties, and perfect to make with kids! I am obsessed with the color purple, and I love making Unicorn Cupcakes, Purple Cake and Purple Cake with Lemon Buttercream.

Ube Muffins with toasted walnuts, brown sugar and vanilla glaze.

Ube Muffins

Ube Muffins are the perfect way to start your day. Their bright color will cheer you up and put you in a great mood for the rest of the day. Ube Muffins are naturally purple, and you know how much I love purple desserts. My most popular recipe on the blog is this gorgeous and easy to make Purple Cake. The muffins are loaded with crunchy toasted walnuts and topped with sweet brown sugar!

Why You Will Love These Purple Ube Muffins:

  • Firstly, they are very easy to make and can be easily transported with no mess.
  • Also, they can be enjoyed on the go.
  • Kids and adults love them.
  • Adorable purple color achieved with no food coloring.
  • Filling, sweet and delicious.
  • It can be enjoyed for breakfast or dessert.
  • In addition, they are great hostess gift.
  • It would be awesome for baby showers.

Toasted walnuts Ube Muffins are great served warm with butter.

Ube Muffins Recipe Tips:

  • You need a purple yams. They are harder to come around and most grocery stores don’t carry them. I usually get mine from Whole Foods, Asian markets also carry them.
  • Don’t be fooled by the cute purple potatoes at your local grocery store, that’s not what you are looking for. Purple yams are basically cousins with sweet potatoes, but are purple!
  • I prefer to boil the purple yams (also called ube) whole with skin, this way the inside doesn’t get too watery and mushy and it preserves the natural purple color even more.
  • Make sure you don’t over bake them, start checking at the 20 minutes mark.
  • The walnuts are optional, if you are allergic or just don’t have any on hand, you can skip them.
  • The brown sugar topping is also optional, I like it because it adds a nice caramel flavor.
  • The Vanilla Glaze is also optional, can be skipped if you want to cut on sugar.
  • The recipe can also be made with sweet potatoes if you want to make sweet potato muffins instead.
  • The muffins are great served warm with butter!

Ube Muffins Recipe

Tools/Ingredients I used to make this recipe:

  • Regular Muffin Pan – I use this pan to bake muffins and regular size cupcakes, I had it for many years and absolutely love it
  • Cupcake Liners – when it comes to cupcake/muffin liners the sky is the limit, I like to keep them in a wide range of colors so I can use it based on the recipe or event
  • Walnuts – I am a huge fan of walnut and use them in trail mixes and desserts
  • Pecans – In this recipe, you can substitute walnuts with pecans
  • Whole Nutmegs – one of my favorite spices, I LOVE the flavor and I add it to savory and sweet recipes, I also prefer the whole ones as they pack more flavor
  • Cinnamon – love adding it to bake goods and it works so well with the purple yams
  • Cinnamon Sticks – I always keep some on hand, in case I want to make fresh cinnamon powder

Ube muffins

  • Prep Time25 MIN
  • Cook Time25 MIN
  • Servings 12 muffins

Ingredients

  • 3-4 purple yams (ube) about 14 oz/400grams
  • 2 eggs room temperature
  • ½ cup white granulated sugar
  • ½ cup canola oil
  • ½ cup whole milk room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1¾ cups white all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup walnuts coarsely chopped

Topping:

  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  • ¼ cup walnuts coarsely chopped

Optional Glaze:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons whole milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Cook the Purple Yams:

  • Bring a medium saucepan half full with water to a boil over medium-high heat.
  • Add the purple yams and cook until tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the heat, run under cold water to cool them, after that peel. Add the purple yams to a medium bowl.
  • Using a fork mash them until smooth and no lumps are visible. Set aside to cool.

Ube Muffins:

  • Preheat oven to 400°F.
  • If preferred, on a medium skillet over medium heat toast the walnuts for a few minutes, keep and eye on them and stir frequently. Once the walnuts start getting brown remove them from heat and set aside to cool.
  • Prepare a muffin tin either by adding cupcake/muffin paper liners or by greasing the muffin cups with butter or baking nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
  • In a large bowl, stir together: flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Set aside.
  • In another bowl, combine eggs with sugar and oil, whisk to combine. Pause and add the milk and vanilla extract, whisk vigorously for 1 minute, until the mixture is fully combined.
  • Add the mashed purple yams to the egg mixture and beat until completely blended.
  • Using a spatula, stir in the flour mixture until just evenly combined.
  • Fold in the walnuts until just evenly distributed, no more than a few strokes to avoid overmixing.
  • Using an ice cream scoop, scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them three-fourths full.
  • Sprinkle evenly with brown sugar and chopped walnuts, lightly pressing them into the batter.
  • Bake until the muffins are golden and springy to the touch. A toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Start checking for doneness at 20 minutes.
  • Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Unmold the muffins and you can serve them warm with butter or place them onto the wire rack to cool to room temperature so you can top them with the glaze.

Optional Glaze:

  • Add the powdered sugar to a medium bowl, add two tablespoons of whole milk and vanilla extract, mix with a spoon until fully combined with no lumps.
  • If the mixture is too thick add one more tablespoon of milk. I like the glaze on the thicker side, yet pourable, so it looks white and shiny on the muffins, not transparent.
  • After the muffins have cooled, use a fork or spoon to drizzle the icing over the tops.
  • Let sit for 10-15 minutes for the glaze to settle.
  • Serve and enjoy!

Nutrition Facts

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Comments

(21)
Shannon

Shannon

Hi how much cooked mashed ube would that be? Thank you.

 Reply (1)
Catalina Castravet

Catalina Castravet

Sorry, I haven't measured the cooked one.

 Reply
Shannon

Shannon

I have frozen mashed ube, do you know how many cups of mashed ube this is? I would love to make these. Thanks :)

 Reply
julia

julia

i made these with sweet potatoes and skipped the glaze, they were really great! everyone in my family enjoyed them!

 Reply
Dan

Dan

Thank you for this perfect recipe! I had some leftover ube puree in the freezer and kept searching the internet what to make with it that didn’t need halaya or powder or extract or food coloring. The color was perfect without food coloring, I used date sugar and replaced 1/2 cup of the flour with baby cereal so my 11-month old could est it too. I didn’t make the frosting but i sprinkled some unsweetened desiccated coconut in the batter, since coconut and ube is a traditional pairing. Delicious and perfectly moist even if it’s a bit dense from the amount of puree. I am also Filipino so it was nice to make these and share with friends to show an aspect of my culture.

 Reply

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