A tray of rolls packed tightly against one another, a purple spiral wound around a cinnamon-and-brown-sugar filling, and a cream cheese frosting melting over the top as they come out of the oven: ube cinnamon rolls are probably the finest thing you can do with a purple powder and an evening's patience. In a classic cinnamon roll, the spiral is barely visible. Here it becomes the main subject — a purple-and-brown contrast you can read from a metre away, achieved without a single drop of colouring.
This page gives the full recipe — ube brioche dough, cinnamon filling, frosting — the rolling method that produces a clean spiral rather than a soft snail, the real proving times (ube dough rises a little more slowly than an ordinary brioche), and the mistakes that turn the purple a greyish brown.
The ingredient in this recipe: Natural Ube Powder 200 g — 16.90 €. 100% Kinampay ube from the Visayas, with no additives, no colouring and no added sugar, packed in Aix-en-Provence. One pouch covers about six batches of twelve rolls.
Why ube and cinnamon work together
The pairing is anything but obvious. Cinnamon is a warm, woody spice with enough aromatic power to flatten just about anything. Ube is a discreet tuber: vanilla, hazelnut, a sweetness that never asserts itself. You might expect one to erase the other.
The opposite happens, and for a simple reason: the two play in different registers. Cinnamon occupies the nose and the first bite; ube occupies the finish and the texture. The roll is eaten in two stages — first the spice and the caramelised brown sugar of the filling, then the brioche crumb that leaves the vanilla-and-hazelnut length so typical of Kinampay. Neither treads on the other's ground.
The dough gains in texture too. Ube powder is highly absorbent: it holds on to the water in the dough and gives a denser, meltier crumb, less stringy than a classic brioche. That is exactly what you want in a cinnamon roll, which should tear into moist layers rather than fray. The same principle is at work in our ube brioche and in Filipino ube pandesal.
The ingredients
For 12 rolls (24 × 30 cm tin)
The purple dough
- 500 g T45 wheat flour — the richest in gluten, essential to offset the weight of the powder
- 30 g of Ubedia Natural ube powder (4 level tablespoons)
- 240 ml warm whole milk (35 °C, no hotter)
- 10 g dried baker's yeast or 25 g fresh yeast
- 70 g caster sugar
- 1 whole egg + 1 yolk
- 80 g soft butter cut into cubes
- 8 g fine salt
The filling
- 90 g very soft butter (softened, certainly not melted)
- 140 g brown sugar
- 2 level tablespoons of ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch of fleur de sel
The frosting
- 120 g cream cheese at room temperature
- 60 g icing sugar
- 30 g soft butter
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk to adjust
- Optional: 1 teaspoon of ube powder for a lilac frosting
A word about the 30 g of powder. It is a deliberately high dose — around 6% of the flour weight — because an enriched dough dilutes colour enormously: between the flour, the butter and the egg, a timid dose gives a disappointing mauve beige. Above 40 g, though, the dough turns dry and the rise runs out of steam. Our recipe-by-recipe benchmarks are gathered in the ube powder dosage guide.
Timing and yield
- Preparation: 30 minutes
- First rise: 1 hr 30
- Shaping: 15 minutes
- Second rise: 45 minutes
- Baking: 22 to 25 minutes at 175 °C
- Total time: about 3 hrs 20 (including 2 hrs 15 of waiting)
- Yield: 12 rolls
- Difficulty: intermediate
The recipe step by step
- Activate the yeast (5 min). Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk with a teaspoon of sugar taken from the 70 g. Let it foam for 5 minutes. If nothing happens, the yeast is dead or the milk was too hot: start again, it costs far less than ruining three hours of work.
- Mix the dry ingredients. In the bowl of the stand mixer, sift the flour and the ube powder together. Sifting is not cosmetic: an undispersed lump of powder will leave a dark, dry patch in the crumb. Add the remaining sugar and the salt, keeping them away from direct contact with the yeast.
- Knead (10 min). Pour in the yeasted milk, the egg and the yolk. Knead for 5 minutes on low speed, then work in the soft butter cube by cube and knead for another 5 to 7 minutes on medium speed, until the dough pulls away from the sides and forms a supple, slightly sticky ball. It will be denser than a plain brioche dough: that is normal.
- First rise (1 hr 30). Cover with cling film and let it double in volume somewhere warm. Ube dough rises about 20% more slowly than plain dough, because the powder takes up part of the available water. Trust the volume, not the clock.
- Make the filling. With a fork, work the softened butter, the brown sugar, the cinnamon and the fleur de sel together into a spreadable paste. It should have the consistency of a thick spread — never runny, or it will leak during baking.
- Roll it out (5 min). Knock back the dough and roll it into a 40 × 30 cm rectangle on a lightly floured surface, about 6 mm thick. The longer the rectangle, the more turns the spiral will have — and it is the number of turns that makes the cut section beautiful.
- Fill and roll up. Spread the filling over the whole surface, leaving 2 cm bare along the long side furthest from you. Roll tightly, starting from the long side nearest you, drawing the log back towards you regularly to push out the air. Seal the bare edge by pinching it.
- Cut. Twelve sections of 3 to 3.5 cm. Use a length of sewing thread or unflavoured dental floss slipped under the log and then crossed over: a knife crushes the spiral, thread cuts it cleanly. It is the only trick that really matters for the final look.
- Second rise (45 min). Arrange the rolls cut side up in a buttered tin, leaving 1 cm between each one. Cover with a tea towel. They should be touching by the end of the rise.
- Bake (22 to 25 min at 175 °C). Conventional heat, ideally. The top should be just set and slightly glossy, the centre still soft. Do not look for the golden colour of a classic cinnamon roll: on a purple dough, a golden crust means you have overbaked and the colour has turned.
- Frost while warm. Whisk the cream cheese, the butter, the icing sugar and the vanilla, then loosen with milk to a coating consistency. Spread over the rolls while they are still warm — never piping hot, or the frosting will turn into a translucent puddle.
The 5 mistakes that ruin ube cinnamon rolls
1. Under-dosing the powder. One or two tablespoons are enough in a cookie, not in an enriched dough. Between the flour, the butter, the eggs and the volume gained during proving, the colour is diluted threefold. Below 25 g per 500 g of flour, you will get a beige brioche with a faint mauve tint.
2. Baking too hot. This is the most common and the most visible mistake. The anthocyanins that give ube its colour are sensitive to prolonged heat: at 200 °C the purple turns grey-brown across the outer 5 mm, and the contrast with the filling disappears. 175 °C, no more, even if it means adding three minutes.
3. Melted butter in the filling. Melted, it migrates out of the log during proving, pools at the bottom of the tin and fries the base of the rolls instead of baking them. The butter must be softened: yielding under the finger, but still opaque.
4. Rolling too loosely. A loose spiral unwinds during baking, the centre rises up like a hat and the roll loses its shape. Tighten at every turn, even if you feel the dough resist.
5. Frosting too early. On rolls straight out of the oven, the cream cheese melts, runs down the sides and leaves the top bare. Wait ten minutes. The right window: the tin is still warm against the back of your hand, but you can hold it.
Variations that work
Coconut version (the most Filipino)
Add 40 g of desiccated coconut to the filling and replace the milk in the dough with coconut milk. The ube-coconut pairing is the reflex of Visayan desserts, and it tempers the cinnamon nicely. Our Coconut Ube Powder 100 g — 15.90 € gives that profile with no extra ingredient.
Vanilla version for a softer contrast
Our Vanilla Ube Powder 100 g — 15.90 € pushes the dough towards the pastry side and softens the spiced first bite. Worth choosing if you are serving children, who sometimes find cinnamon too assertive.
Ube and white chocolate cinnamon rolls
Scatter 80 g of chopped white chocolate over the filling before rolling. The cocoa butter melts into the spiral and creates creamy veins. It is the same pairing as in our ube cookies, and it works for the same reason.
Lilac frosting
A teaspoon of ube powder in the cream cheese is enough for a pale lilac frosting. Guaranteed effect against the purple spiral. For more advanced purple cream techniques, see our ube frosting.
Making them the night before, freezing, reheating
The evening-before method. By far the most practical. Follow the recipe up to cutting, arrange the rolls in the tin, cover with cling film and refrigerate overnight. The second rise happens slowly in the cold over 8 to 12 hours. In the morning, take the tin out, let it come back to temperature for 45 minutes, then bake. The aromatic development of the crumb is noticeably better than with a fast rise.
Freezing. The raw rolls freeze well once cut, laid flat on a tray then bagged. Thaw slowly in the fridge the day before, then prove at room temperature. Baked rolls freeze too, without frosting: 15 seconds in the microwave brings back their softness.
Storage. Three days at room temperature under a cover, frosting included. Beyond that, the crumb dries out. As for the raw material, our page on storing ube powder explains how to keep colour and aroma once the pouch is open — moisture is the only real enemy.
Which ube powder should you choose for this recipe?
An enriched dough is a harsh test. It dilutes the colour, it goes through the oven, and it does not forgive a powder cut with starch — which gives a dry crumb and a dirty mauve. Three criteria matter. The variety first: Kinampay from the Visayas offers the deepest shade, which is decisive when everything else is working against the colour. Then purity: a single ingredient on the label, with no colouring or added sugar. And finally the fineness of the grind, so that the powder disperses into the flour instead of forming dark specks in the crumb.
- Natural Ube Powder 100 g — 12.90 € — enough for three batches of twelve rolls.
- Natural Ube Powder 200 g — 16.90 € — the reference format, best cost per gram.
- Duo Rituel — 29.90 € — 200 g Natural plus a flavour of your choice, to make the recipe in coconut or vanilla.
Frequently asked questions
Can the dough be made without a stand mixer?
Yes, but allow 15 minutes of kneading by hand and some elbow grease when it comes to working in the butter. Ube dough is denser than a classic brioche dough, so more tiring to work. The result is identical.
Why is my dough not rising?
Three causes, in order of frequency: milk that was too hot and killed the yeast (above 40 °C), salt put in direct contact with the yeast, or simply patience. Ube powder slows the rise by about 20% — a dough that seems slack after an hour has not failed, it just needs another thirty minutes.
Can I replace part of the flour with ube powder?
No. Ube powder brings no gluten: it cannot replace flour in an enriched dough, which needs an elastic network to hold the gas. It is added on top, never as a substitute. The same principle applies to all yeasted baking.
Does the colour really hold up to baking?
Yes, provided you stay at 175 °C. The crumb keeps a clear purple; only the exposed surface darkens slightly, as on any brioche. It is going above 190 °C that tips the shade towards brown.
How far in advance can the frosting be made?
Three days in the fridge in a sealed container. Take it out an hour before, then re-whisk it for thirty seconds to bring back its softness.
Going further
If you enjoyed these purple rolls, carry on with the ube brioche, Filipino ube pandesal and the ube cake roll, which pushes the spiral logic even further. The full repertoire is gathered on our ube recipes page.
Before you order, our ube powder buying guide compares formats, origin and price per gram, and our ube powder for baking page details what sets apart a powder that holds up in the oven.
Order Natural Ube Powder 200 g — 16.90 € and start your first batch of purple cinnamon rolls this weekend.
