Hawaiian Ube Bread

Recently, my aunt and uncle who live in Hawaii returned to Cali with this wonderfully sweet, soft, purple Hawaiian Ube Bread! What?! Hawaiian purple bread? My son thoroughly enjoyed it and still asks about it a year later.Full of anthocyanins, it just might be the bread version of a superfood!

When we took our trip to Maui we made it a point to seek out the bakery responsible for this delicious loaf. Now, you can find Taro Bread all over the island. The Taro Bread is purple, but that’s about it. You can’t really even tell by tasting it that there’s much difference between it and regular bread. Our friends over at Kirbie Cravings have a nice little rant about Ube vs Taro (hint: taro root is not ube). Anyways, this bread is different from Taro Bread or a taro bun you might find. And much better. This is sweet, fluffy, soft and really great for just about anything. But you can eat it just by itself and be happy.

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Now, we made it to the Home Maid Bakery eventually, but this is Hawaii. They didn’t have any. When we asked if they would have any tomorrow, or any time soon, we just got a strange look. Finally they asked around and told us that the person who makes that bread is on vacation. The one person. And when he would return was not really known.

So needless to say we were Hawaiian Ube Breadless. I finally got around to making my own attempt at a Hawaiian Ube Bread recipe. Mine is not quite as purple as theirs, but just as delicious.

A couple of things to point out

1. 1. Yes, I know it’s slightly underbaked in the picture, but I adjusted the time in the recipe
   2. Ube Halaya, you can definitely find at Filipino Groceries, and probably at most other asian groceries, or of course you can get it at Amazon .

Ube Science!

And now, it turns out there are emerging studies that show that purple bread is actually good for you! Well at least it’s better than white bread. Now be sure, I am not a scientist, or a chemist, but if the studies are true, then that makes this bread even more exciting!

According to a story published on CNN.com, a food scientist named Zhou Weibiao has discovered that when he added anthocyanins, which he extracted from black rice to bread, it caused a chemical reaction with the starch enzymes in the bread, slowing digestion by 20%

The problem with white bread is that it digests too quickly and it spikes blood sugar levels.

Anthocyanin occurs naturally in foods such as grapes, blueberries, and yes, ube! The same article states that

So again, I’m not a food scientist, but since anthocyanins exist in high levels in ube then I would assume that this carries over to my purple bread recipe!

Make some and enjoy with a nice bubble tea, or ice cream!

I may try it again using powdered ube, and also fresh ube and see how it turns out. The Ube Halaya has quite a bit of sugar in it, so I’ll have to keep that in mind for future recipes.

Please let me know if you made this recipe and how it turned out!

And if you’re looking for something more substantial, try our empanada recipe!