Making latik is a labor of love. When I made it for the first time, I didn’t realize how long it would take for coconut cream curds to toast over the stovetop. I FaceTimed my parents in fear that it would never get to that beautiful brown color. I took it for granted, always eating kakanin like sapin-sapin and biko that was somehow magically covered in it. In Filipino cuisine, I feel like most dishes are unassumingly in nature. You get a plateful of kare-kare, but that peanut butter oxtail stew took someone’s nanay, tatay, lolo or lola hours to get it on your plate. While this ube cheesecake recipe is another Filipino-American fusion dessert that pulls from my childhood, the process of toasting latik alone helped me appreciate the labor and deft of skill my parents had in not burning it either.
For the crust, I was hellbent on finessing a way of incorporating SkyFlakes crackers. They are iconic Filipino saltine crackers, a staple of my youth! Long after the crackers have been eaten, you’ll still see the box it came in filled with odds & ends of a Filipino household. The running joke is that you’re lucky if there are even crackers in a box much like those Royal Dansk cookies that house sewing supplies.
With both the latik and the Skyflakes cracker crust, you’re going to love the way the saltiness pairs with the velvety, creaminess of the ube cheesecake. I tend to make lots more cupcakes than full cakes because they’re easier to share without the hassle of cutting up slices for people. Not to mention, they’re just so cute!
My biggest tip for the cheesecake batter is to let the cheesecake blocks sit out on your kitchen countertop for upwards to 2 hours at room temperature. If your cream cheese is cold, your batter will be lumpy! With that, roll up your sleeves and wash your hands because you’re ready to go into the kitchen and make these ube cheesecake cupcakes. 🙂
Ube Cheesecake Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the SkyFlakes Cracker Crust:
- 1 ½ cups SkyFlakes cracker crumbs
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 3 tablespoons white sugar
For the Cheesecake:
- 2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ube extract
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
For the Latik:
- 2 cups coconut cream will yield 1/2 cup of latik
Instructions
For the Latik:
- In a pan over medium heat, add coconut cream and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid starts to thicken.
- Lower heat and continue to cook. As oil starts to separate and solids begin to form, regularly stir and scrape sides and bottom of pan to prevent from burning.
- Continue to cook and stir until curds turn golden brown.
- Using a fine-mesh sieve, drain latik from the oil and store in an airtight container until ready to use.
For the SkyFlakes Cracker Crust:
- Preheat the oven to 325˚F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.
- In a small bowl, combine the SkyFlakes cracker crumbs, melted butter and sugar. Stir together with a fork until well blended and all the dry ingredients are moistened.
- Press 1 tablespoon of the mixture into the bottom of each cupcake liner.
- Bake until just set, 5-7 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack.
For the Cheesecake:
- Beat the cream cheese on medium-high speed in the bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy.
- Blend in the sugar until smooth. Mix in the salt and ube extract.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
- To assemble, spoon 3 tablespoons of the cheesecake batter over the crust in each cupcake liner.
- Bake until the filling is set, about 22 minutes.
- Remove from oven and top each cupcake with a sprinkle of latik.
- Transfer to a wire cooling rack and let cool to room temperature.
- Transfer to the refrigerator and let chill for at least 4 hours before serving.
I am not a good baker and have a crappy oven but I live in Williamsburg and would like to buy one of these amazing looking cupcakes from you next time you make a batch! Or we could do a trade. My spider plant has a lot of babies that need homes!
Omg I feel this so hard about bad ovens! I would be happy to trade baked goods for spider plant babies one of these days! 💫