30-Minute Ube Marble Cookies

If you need an unfussy cookie recipe, these ube marble cookies are for you. They have the most vibrant purple color thanks to a touch of ube extract swirled into a vanilla cookie dough. Included in this blog post are details on how to get that marble effect and how to make sure your cookies are perfectly round every time.

During the spring, I love making the prettiest desserts, and for me, ube desserts are the prettiest out of all the desserts out there – think ube cookies or ube brownies. So I thought I would create a version of my Vietnamese coffee marble cookies with ube! I swapped out the espresso powder for ube extract and took out the condensed milk, making this cookie recipe an even easier recipe. And the resulting cookies are vibrant and whimsical with swirls of purple mixed with white vanilla dough. This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Some deets about key ingredients

• Unsalted butter – For this recipe, I used unsalted butter because I wanted the nuttiness of the butter without it coloring the cookie. I know I normally use browned butter in my cookies. The best way to get softened or room temperature butter is to leave the butter out for an hour or two. If you happen to forget, you can also microwave it using the defrost setting for 30 seconds to a minute depending on how strong your microwave is. Additionally, you can use salted butter for this recipe, but I would not recommend it because you never know exactly how much salt they put into the butter.
• Granulated sugar – A key ingredient in these cookies. Typically, I use brown sugar and white granulated sugar in my cookie recipes, but in this case, I used only granulated sugar because I wanted the sweetness but no color. I always get asked the question if you can reduce the sugar in the recipe, and unfortunately, I do not recommend it for this recipe. Reducing the sugar will throw off the wet/dry balance in the cookies, making them drier and tougher.

Making my Ube Marble Cookies (with tips!)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C).
2. Prep 2 baking sheets by covering them with parchment paper.
3. Combine 1 ⅔ cup of all purpose flour, ½ tsp of baking soda, ½ tsp of baking powder, and ¼ tsp of salt in a small bowl. Mix and set aside.
4. In a separate bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together ½ cup of unsalted butter and 1 cup of granulated sugar until well combined.
   • Tip #1: Use room temperature ingredients for the best results. Butter and eggs don’t combine very well, especially at different temperatures, so using room temperature butter and eggs help the dough come together better.
5. Add 1 egg and 2 tsp of vanilla extract to the mixer. Mix until combined.
6. Combine the dry ingredients from step 1 with the wet ingredients. Mix until just combined.
   • Tip #2: Be careful not to mix too much! This will make the cookies tough and chewy.
7. Scoop out 2/3 of the dough into a separate bowl. Add 3/4 tsp of ube extract and mix until the dough is completely purple.
8. Take 2 tbsp of dough from the ube dough and 1 tbsp from the vanilla dough, and combine them into 1 cookie dough ball. Each ball should be ~50 grams.
   • Tip #3: I like to use a #60 cookie scoop (~2 tsp) to scoop the cookie dough. I scoop the ube dough then the vanilla dough and then another scoop of the ube dough. I like to place the vanilla dough between the ube dough to create the contrast between brown and white dough.
   • Tip #4: If the dough feels too sticky, put both in the fridge for 10-20 minutes until the dough firms up.
9. Add ½ cup of granulated sugar to a small bowl. Coat the dough ball in granulated sugar. Repeat this process until you run out of cookie dough.
10. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes until the edges are slightly brown.
    • Tip #5: Use a round biscuit cutter to shape your cookies after baking. Place it around each cookie and move in a circular motion to shape the cookie.
11. Cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

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