I thought I would be ambitious and make ube pastillas from scratch…well, let’s just say, 
that is the first and probably last time I will bother…they just taste so good when purchased and they are a royal pain in the rear to make yourself… At any rate, I include a recipe here (modified from a recipe published in the Philippine Star newspaper in November 2004 and morphed with a recipe I read in the cookbook Recipes of the Philippines) if you want to torture yourselves… and I really didn’t get them quite right this one and only attempt at it but they tasted great nonetheless… To make cook some good fragrant and intensely colored ube as described in the previous post on ube jaleya. Place ½ kilo of cooked and “milled†ube into a non-stick pan or heavy bottomed stainless steel pan. Add 1 cup fresh milk and 1 cup of condensed milk. Add about 1 cup white sugar or more if you like it sweeter…
Stir this concoction (as with ube jaleya) until very thick and dry (about 1 hour) and 
remove from the heat and allow the mixture to cool for about an hour. Roll it into long logs and cut ube pastillas into two inch or less long pieces. My hands were coated in butter for this task so the logs were oozing butter; I would reduce butter in any further attempt. I then tried to dry them out (tostado version) in a low heat oven and wrap them up in clear cellophane or food wrap to look good and stay fresh. Seems the butter was excessive so it didn’t dry out as much as I wanted and worse, the pastillas discolored (cooked) when exposed to too much heat… You also need to roll them in some caster or granulated sugar before wrapping for that really sweet/flavorful ube hit! I appreciate that this is not something typically done in home kitchens anymore but it is doable…
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As you said, nobody makes pastillias de ube at home anymore. But for an expat making it myself might be the only way for me to have some pastillias de ube. Thanks for the recipe!
For the cooked ube to be easily molded in desired shapes without the high caloric butter, I heat the ube jalea in the microwave oven until it reaches manageable consistency.
What would happen if instead of using butter to manipulate the pieces you used flour? Or would this destroy the creaminess of the candy?
I’m just going to buy the darn things, can’t imagine myself doing it, but I still remember my yaya cooking it and stirring it and oy, way too much trouble. Thanks for sacrificing yourself for this MM!
for those who like a sugary ube pastillas (i like both) — one way to do it is to go easy on the sugar while cooking the ube, so that you can incorporate more sugar while working with it, without making it too sweet, i.e., work on a sugared surface, preferably marble or granite to keep the ube cool, dip your hands in sugar while molding. another way i’ve tried it is to pass the ube through a piping bag, sans tube, though i had less successful results — maybe if i had used a creamier ube, it would have worked better.
for non-sugary ube pastillas i do as marian says and work with warm ube instead.
and i like my pastillas really soft and melt-in-your-mouth; i’m not a fan of the dry kind.
What we do for the jaleya is look for the best harvest we can find in the market those with the nicest purple color too. Boil them, remove the skin and manually mash or grind till they are smooth. In a big “kawali” we mix the ube with evaporated and condensed milk and use the same pan to cook the mixture. Some add dark sugar but we like ours not so sweet but with the dominant taste of the milk. Sometimes we add one or two pandan leaves to add to the flavor and aroma. Yes MM, the hard part is doing all the stirring and mixing while cooking not allowing the bottom of the mixture to burn, stirring to the point when all ingredients have mixed comletely and all liquid ingredients seemed to have evaporated and it is no longer possible to stir any longer. For the pastillas, we let the cooked ube jaleya cool a little and then put some on a flat floured surface, using a buttered rolling pin to flatten the jaleya and cutting them into pastillas size strips. Then coating each piece with either flour, sugar or milk powder.
if the pieces were coated with flour, wouldn’t these require additional cooking?
hmmm. . . i just love ube, i just wonder why a number of people i know do not like this yummy thing that exist. . .
To Wondering, in reply to your query, no, there’s no need for additional cooking. We just coat the pieces with flour to the point that they are no longer sticky.
pwede po bang mai send itong recipe nyo
Hey Guys,
There’s a very new variety of ube in town, one does not have to wash it with more running water and run your hands through them to remove all the sands sticking….The new variety have its fruit on vines..i mean you only have to pick the matured or not so matured ones easily w/o any hassles, boil them, peel and mash to your heart’s content. Its color is dark violet that you dont have to add coloring to it. The texture and taste is all the same with an ube root crop. The fruit’s color is brown and it looks like a potato that has grown its shape irregularly with a rough skin and becomes browner when mature. One vine alone planted at your backyard will yield 2-3 kilos of ube a week and continously bearing its fruit. Good Luck!!
it’s yummy!
I did your recipe but when i rolled the mixture into logs,it got so sticky that i couldnt mold it anymore.mixture stuck in my hands.pls help
karen, you probably didn’t cook the ube until it dried out enough… perhaps a little longer the next time you try it…
How about using corn starch to coat the molded ube logs instead of using powdered milk?