Ube Cheese Pandesal. If you haven’t heard of it yet, well, last year, Kimmy Bakes Bakeshop in Silang, Cavite, Philippines brought together ube (purple yam) and cheese as filling for good ol’ pandesal. Now they’re known as the home of the Original Ube Cheese Pandesal.
Prior to the quarantine, I already noticed people sharing pictures of this pandesal on Facebook and Instagram. When community quarantine took effect, people I know were suddenly taking a stab at baking it. Guess who’s late for that particular party? Yeah, me.
Since I cannot go to Cavite due to the pandemic, I can’t try the original. But when my mother ended up with a butt-load of boxed cheese and she gave me some, I decided to try making it myself. So far, I’ve baked Ube Cheese Pandesal twice.
It was fun seeing the dough colored purple.
Here’s the final product straight from the oven.
Notice the gooey cheese in the center.
During my first attempt, I cubed the cheese, although it seemed like it wasn’t nearly enough cheese inside each bread. But it was tasty.
Days later, I made a second attempt.
This time around, I cut the cheese into bigger cubes, which made it look better. I ended up with melty, oozy warm cheese. I wish that I was able to take a good picture or even a better video of breaking bread, but when I opened up the pandesal straight from the oven, of course, it was way too hot to handle.
My taste testers all approved both versions. As for me, I had some observations and notes for myself.
- It’s really like baking plain pandesal (I blogged about the first time I baked plain pandesal here), but I need to add purple yam flavor and sliced cheese.
- I didn’t know what ube to use for the bread, so when a neighbor sold me ube powder, I thought it would be enough. Alas, I was mistaken. While it has that ube color, it definitely didn’t have that ube taste I adore (ube halaya is a favorite of mine!). Next time, I will actually add ube halaya with the cheese. I’ll use the powder to color the bread.
- Wait at least 15 minutes before breaking it open, so you don’t get minorly burned. Don’t bite into it too early either, no matter how tempting it is.
If regular pandesal is basic, then Ube Cheese Pandesal is nothing but. The thing is, I’m a big fan of freshly baked soft plain pandesal and anything else feels uncomfortable. While I initially thought what an odd pairing it was, I realized that it really wasn’t! After all, ube cheesecake exists already. I’m planning a third attempt, and hopefully, I’ll manage to create my own version. I do wish I can try Kimmy Bakes Bakeshop’s Ube Cheese Pandesal soon.