Ube Halaya Ice Cream

Weekends are the only time the husband and I (and sometimes Brady) travel outside of Thousand Oaks into the LA area to get Asian food or meet up with friends. With the horrendous LA traffic, we sometimes need to plan to leave the house earlier in the morning to avoid traffic and crazy LA drivers.

Over the past weekend, we ended up in West Covina to help a friend paint his new crib and since we're in the "Asian" neighborhood where it feels almost like home....we knew we had to eat up and stock up on Asian food. While we were waiting for out yummy Indonesian takeout in Walnut, I ventured into a Filipino bakery like store selling all sorts of Filipino sweets, snacks and pastries. Of course, I couldn't just window shop at those delectables; I had to get a few to sample. It's funny some of their desserts resemble and taste very similar to the Malaysian Kuihs. One of my Filipino friend and I are always teasing each other on "who copied who.

Anyway, before I get too carried away..... I got this container of Ube Halaya (again it looked a little like something we had in Malaysia except ours is made from Taro and this was made of Purple Yam). The texture wasn't what I expected as I expected something with a smoother texture and since I couldn't eat the the whole container as is...I decided to make some Ube Halaya Ice Cream!

Real quick on Ube Halaya. Ube means purple yam, while Halaya is a Filipino dessert where they boil and grate the yam and cook it with sugar, milk, coconut milk and butter (for greasing). I guess from googling a round the recipes will differ base on personal preference......

With that said, this batch of Ube Halaya ice cream was made using Kalahi Bakery's Ube Halaya. The sugar content might defer depending on the sweetness of your Ube Halaya... It's slightly grainy due to the ube... but I like it! =) Here's the recipe if you want to try it out. Maybe next time, I'll make my own ube halaya!

UBE (PURPLE YAM) HALAYA ICE CREAM RECIPE
Ingredients

• 6 Oz Ube Halaya
• 1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar (*Sugar measurement might differ based on the sweetness of your ube halaya)
• 3/4 Cup Half & Half, divided
• 1 Cup Heavy Cream

Method

In a medium bowl, heat 1/2 cup of half and half in the microwave for about 1 minute. Stir in sugar in the hot liquid until all sugar has melted. Pour mixture, remaining half & half, and ube halaya in a blender. Slowly pulse the mixture until most of the ube halaya is incorporated, then pour in heavy cream and continue to pulse the mixture until they are well incorporated. Don't worry if you still see tiny bits of the ube in the mixture; they add some texture to the ice cream. =)

Turn the ice cream maker on and pour mixture ion freezer bowl. Process ice cream until you get a soft serve consistency or according to the manufacturer's instruction. Since this was a smaller batch of ice cream, it only took me 20 minutes with my Cuisinart 1.5 Ice Cream Maker. Transfer ice cream into container and freeze for 2-3 hours before serving.

June's Comments: The ice cream was good for about a day, after a few days of storage the texture wasn't very desirable. =(

Simply June