Ube Cookies and Cream Cookies

Flavored with ube extract and ube halaya, these ube cookies and cream cookies are chewy, tender, and full of Oreos. Make them for a dinner party or just for yourself. Your tastebuds will for sure thank you.

Oreos are an ingredient that I have grown to love. They are so good, and so many people have great memories tied to them. So recently I’ve been making a lot of desserts with oreos from ube oreo ice cream to just plain old cookies and cream cookies. I wanted to post a version of my cookies on the blog, so I thought why not add ube halaya and ube extract and make them ube cookies and cream cookies. I love the end result. They are perfectly tender with the perfect flavor.

Ingredients, Substitutions & Adjustments

• All purpose flour – The main dry ingredient in these cookies.
• Baking soda – Baking soda helps create a soft, fluffy cookie.
• Salt – Salt helps balance out the sweetness from the sugars.
• Unsalted butter – Adds a nutty flavor to these cookies. As mentioned in the tips below, browning this butter amplifies the nutty flavor of the butter.
• Light, dark, and granulated sugar – Through testing, I found that the perfect chewiness (in my opinion) and sweetness come from a combination of all 3 sugars. Light and dark brown sugar make the cookie chewier and the granulated sugar helps give it that crispy edge. You can definitely only use light or only dark brown sugar if that’s all you have. Dark brown will make the cookies sweeter and chewier, and light brown sugar will result to less sweetness and less chewiness.
• Egg – Makes the cookies richer and chewier.
• Vanilla extract – Adds flavor to the cookies. Substitute with an equal amount of vanilla paste or 1 vanilla bean.
• Ube extract – Concentrated purple extract that gives the cookies their purple color and ube flavor. If you want less ube flavor, use 1/2 tsp of ube extract. This will reduce the ube flavor and make the cookies a lighter purple color.
• Ube halaya – A purple yam jam that gives the cookies their purple color and ube flavor. If you can’t find ube halaya.
• White chocolate chips – Use any type of chocolate chips you want. I find that white chocolate goes better with ube flavor.

What is ube halaya?

Ube halaya is a dessert made from boiled and smashed purple yam (ube) and is typically found in the Philippines. When you have desserts like ube ice cream, ube cake, or ube cinnamon rolls, ube is what gives the dessert its purple color and flavor. Traditionally when you make ube, you combine grated purple yam, condensed milk, and butter together in a pan and cook until thickened to the consistency of mashed potatoes. That is then added to your dessert for flavor and color.

For this recipe, I used both ube extract and ube halaya to give these cookies the most pronounced ube flavor. Both ingredients give the cookies their ube flavor and its pretty purple color.

How to make ube cookies and cream cookies

Brown 1/2 cup of unsalted butter. Melt butter over medium high heat until it is completely melted. Lower the heat to medium low and cook until brown bits start to appear at the bottom. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Combine 1 1/4 cup of all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp of baking soda, and 1/4 tsp of salt in a small bowl. Mix and set aside. Add browned butter, 1/4 cup light brown sugar, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, and 1/4 cup granulated sugar to a bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix until combined.

Next, add the egg and mix for 3-5 minutes until the mixture turns a light brown color. Then add the 1 tsp of vanilla extract, 1 tsp of ube extract, and 1/4 cup of ube halaya. Mix until combined. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix until just combined.b Lastly, add 8 Oreo chunks and 1/4 cup of white chocolate chips. Mix until just combined.

Cover and let the cookie dough chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C). Using a medium cookie scoop (~2 tbsp), scoop the dough onto the baking sheet. Make sure they are 2 inches apart. Bake for 12-14 minutes. After baking, let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Tips on how to make the best ube cookies and cream cookies

Ingredient Tips

1. Use all room temperature ingredients. This really does matter because butter and eggs don’t like to mix together, especially when they’re at different temperatures, so having them at the same temperature helps them come together better.
2. Why are you using brown butter? This is one of the keys to the intense flavor of these cookies. The brown bits add so much extra flavor to the dough. Make sure to cool it down to room temperature before using because using hot butter will create for a greasy dough.
3. Why are you using both dark brown and light brown sugar? I found that this gives a good balance of sweetness and color to the cookies. Dark brown sugar gives that nice light brown color to the cookies as well as sweetness. I found that using only light brown sugar doesn’t give it the light brown color I like. And using all dark brown sugar makes the dough too wet and too sweet. 

Method Tips

1. Mix the butter, sugars, and egg thoroughly. The biggest mistake people make is not mixing the wet ingredients properly. When you mix the wet ingredients, especially the butter and sugar, you’re really trying to incorporate/dissolve the sugar.
2. Don’t over mix the cookie dough after adding the dry ingredients. You want to mix the dry ingredients as little as possible because mixing encourages gluten formation which creates tough, chalky cookies. I like to mix the dough until there is a little bit of flour not incorporated into the dough. I then add the chocolate chips and finish mixing the dough.
3. Why do I need to rest this dough so long? Resting/cooling the cookie dough allows the butter to solidify, so it doesn’t melt so quickly in the oven. This matters because if it melts too quickly in the oven, your cookies will spread more, creating flatter cookies. In addition, allowing it to rest makes it more flavorful. The cookie dough is sort of like marinating while it’s cooling.
4. How do I make my cookies flat? How do I make them more chunky? This will depend on how much time you allow the dough to rest in the fridge. The more you chill the dough in the fridge, the chunkier the cookie will be. If you don’t chill the dough at all, the cookie will be very flat.
5. For the best flavor chill for at least 24 hours. This is one of the biggest changes I’ve made in my method for baking cookies. The longer the cookie dough rests, the better the flavor and texture will be. This cookie dough can rest in the fridge for up to 72 hours. Personally, I do it for 24 hours because I simply can’t wait any longer! If you can’t wait 24 hours, I would recommend at least 1 hour, but the longer the better.
6. Why is scooping your cookie dough with a scoop important? This is important because the scoop helps give your cookies their round shape. To get the perfect round shape, scoop the dough, press it into the scoop with your hand, and then level it off so you get a flat bottom.
7. Why is cooling your cookies important? I know it is SO HARD to not eat a cookie right away, but your cookies are still baking when they’re on the baking sheet! The center will still look soft but it will slowly get firmer as it sits on the baking sheet.

How do you store these ube cookies and cream cookies?

Cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 3 days at room temperature and up to 6 months in the freezer.

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