Ube is more than a trend for this Detroit-based Fil-Am baker

Photo from JP Makes and Bakes/Instagram

Ube has gained so much popularity in the US, but for Filipinos like marketer-turned-baker Jonathan Peregrino, this flavor carries memories of home.

Ube has been a beloved flavor in the country since time immemorial, but the world is only recently catching up.

Forbes traces the “first” American experience of ube to 2015 through the Miami-based Manila Social Club. Its hundred-dollar gold-ube doughnut brought the flavor to American prominence.

It then had a resurgence during the 2020 pandemic, “when Filipinos in the diaspora who were struggling with the social and mobility effects of COVID-19 began to yearn for a taste of home,” Fobres writes.

The purple crop has since been making its way through menus, food features, and even festivals dedicated to all things ube-flavored. Its popularity has become so widespread and long-lasting that publications in the US are now calling it “more than a trend” and an “uber ingredient.”

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Ube equates to home for JP Makes and Bakes

For Detroit-based Fil-Am baker Jonathan Peregrino though, ube means so much more. The baker runs JP Makes and Bakes. It is a pop-up bakery business known for its selection of pastries incorporating the iconic Filipino tuber.

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His ube cakes, cookies, brownies, rolls, and other treats are a way for him and his regulars to connect with home. Some even travel from other cities just to enjoy his ube-infused pastries.

With “sharing love for sweets and Filipino heritage” at the core of JP Makes and Bakes, Peregrino ensures ube is more than just a flavor to capitalize on.

He takes great care in presenting ube the way Filipinos know and remembers it. Because for him, it is representation, a way to share his culture, and also a way to connect and reconnect with memories of the homeland.

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His pop-ups in Detroit and in neighborhoods in Southeast Michigan have drawn crowds of patrons. He also continuously collaborates with local businesses. The most recent of which was with Huddle Soft Serve in Downtown Detroit and West Village Detroit.