7 MILE HOUSE
ube bake off 2022
dine in and Order an ube bake off sampler
vote for your favorite ube dessert!
Oct. 12 - 17, 2022
WHO WILL YOU CROWN UBE BAKE OFF CHAMP?
We’re excited to host the 7 Mile House 3rd Annual Ube Bake Off in celebration of Filipino American History Month this October where YOU get to pick the 7 Mile House Ube Bake Off Champ!
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Dine in anytime from Oct. 12-17 between 11:30am-8pm (or until 9pm Fri./Sat.). Best to make your reservation HERE.
Order the UBE BAKE OFF SAMPLER (dine in only)
You will be served the Ube Bake Off sampler with 4 desserts. Each order comes with 2 ballots.
Taste all the Ube Desserts and vote for your favorite. Make sure to provide feedback to our bakers so they can get even better!
Submit your ballot to your server.
Winner will be announced on Oct. 20, 6pm, at 7 Mile House and on Instagram Live
WHO ARE THIS YEAR’S UBE-KERS?
Grace Gascon and her Mo' Ube Mochi Bars
Ube butter mochi that sits on Graham cracker crust, drizzled w/ white chocolate Ube ganache & Ube polvorone crumbles!
Grace started her small biz during the pandemic and sells at pop ups EVERY WEEKEND while working her day job during the week. She dreams of leaving the corporate world and baking full time. Let's help her make this happen!
Check out her small biz here and follow her on IG! @madebygrace_187
Ava Marie Romero and her Ube Madelines
Ava is a food blogger, competition cook and 2019 7 Mile House Ube Bake Off Champion. Born with autism, nothing stops Ava from competing in national cooking events and talking about her love for the kitchen.
Ava was instrumental in featuring 7 Mile House in "Check Please, Bay Area" and has joined our Adobo Cookoff competitions at 7 Mile House.
Check out Ava’s cooking adventures and follow her on IG! @chefavamarie1989
Eloisa Martin’s Ube Kouign Amann
Eloisa has been baking in the Bay since 2015 while juggling her day job during the week! She specializes in pastries and custom cakes shaped into anything you can dream of.
Her Ube Kouign Amann is a Filipino and French pastry you need to try!
Check out Eloisa’s custom cakes and follow her on IG to see what I’m talking about! @novela_cakes
Rowe and Jack’s Ube Buko Pie
Rowe & Jack specializes in amazing traditional Filipino pastries with their own personal twist. From cassava cakes to assorted pies inspired by ingredients from the Philippines, this husband and wife team is an inspiration to entrepreneurs!
Check out Rowe & Jack’s next pop up venues and follow them on IG! @sweet_pipers
WHAT DOES THE WINNER GET?
2021 Champ Aleli Crutchfield and her Ube Tres Leches
“Last year’s win gave 2021 Champion Aleli so much publicity. It became a great opportunity to sell her cakes at 7 Mile House for one month but demand has been so high we are STILL selling her Ube Tres Leches one year later!”
—-Vanessa Garcia, Owner, 7 Mile House
The winner is crowned 7 Mile House Ube Bake Off Champ of the year and has the option to sell their ube dessert at 7 Mile in October and/or November! The winner also gets a 7 Mile $100 gift certificate, a feature on our blog and lots of social media exposure, not to mention the win is a great addition to your baking portfolio.
Offering your dessert at a popular local restaurant like 7 Mile House is a great way to put your name out there especially if you are starting a home-based business or are already selling at events and pop-ups! 2021 champ, Aleli Crutchfield, started her personal chef business during the pandemic. Her win at 7 Mile House has made her the “Ube Tres Leches Queen” greatly contributing to the growth of her new business. It’s awesome to be featured at 7 Mile House where local talent is always celebrated in the community!
How do I join the Ube Bake Off next year?
Fill out THIS FORM and we will contact you in August 2023
Past Winners
2021 Ube Bake Off Champion: Aleli Crutchfield with her Ube Tres Leches
2019 Ube Bakeoff Off Champion with her Ube Flan
Why Ube and why an Ube Bake Off?
What’s purple and delicious and authentically Filipino?
Far from the obscure purple sweet yam it used to be, ube (read: ooh-bay) is having a moment in pop culture. Thanks in part to its IG-worthy hue, ube-flavored drinks, desserts and snacks have flooded timelines and taste buds simultaneously.
We’re big fans of ube here at 7 Mile House, so in 2016 “7 Mile Mom” and pastry chef, Cleopatra Garcia, added this delicious offering to our dessert menu: ube cheesecake, even before ube got u-big!
Since then, it’s become wildly popular so why not hold a competition?
What is the Ube Bake Off?
Once chosen to be among the 4 contestants, the bakers and their desserts will be featured as a dessert sampler on the 7 Mile House Menu served from October 12-17, with 90% of proceeds going to the bakers.
Guests who purchase the sampler (dine in only) will receive 2 ballots to vote for their favorite ube dessert. The winner will be decided by YOU!
Here’s what happened at last year’s Ube Bake Off 2021
2021’s contestants were a mix of home bakers and small biz entrepreneurs
The 7 Mile House Annual Ube Bakeoff is held every October in celebration of Filipino American History Month and in 2021, the competition is fierce! We had a great mix of home bakers and folks who built home businesses inspired by the pandemic.
Desserts were available for dine-in or take-out from October 20-25, with our patrons and customers as the judges.
2021’s Ube Bakeoff Champion was Aleli Crutchfield, who wowed the crowd with her Ube Tres Leches!
meet last year’s ube bake off contestants:
Aleli Crutchfield — Ube Tres Leches
“I’ve never joined a baking competition before and it sounded really fun. I’m also a very competitive person, so this is right up my alley! I want to be a part of a community that pushes Filipino food/flavors forward to the masses!”
In July 2021, Aleli decided to leave her County job as a Health Inspector of 16 years to finally pursue her passion of food and began her new career as a self taught personal chef, cooking her amazing meals at her client’s homes for their small celebrations. She enjoys creating one of a kind menus that are Filipino inspired with an emphasis on seasonal local produce. She is also an advocate for Filipino culinary preservation and educates herself, her clients and IG followers on the origins of Filipino food/flavors. This is her way of honoring her culture and to keep pushing Filipino food forward.
Aleli’s Ube Tres Leches is an ube cake baked in banana leaves, giving you subtle “bibingka” vibes. The cake is then soaked in 3 different types of milk and topped with fresh whipped cream and local berries which add an acidic note to help cut through all of that creamy deliciousness. It is seriously "the perfect subo!" Enjoy!
To check out Aleli's creations and to hire her for your next small private event, please visit @theperfectsubo.co on Instagram.
Marylou Heramia — 5-Layer Ube Dream Cake
“I believe that 7 Mile’s Ube Bake Off is a great opportunity for me and my business. I am thrilled to be part of this local event! My Ube Dream Cake is my best seller and needs to be shared to more people in the Bay Area!”
Marylou’s Ube Dream Cake has 5 layers: ube cake, ube ganache, homemade ube halaya, white chocolate and topped with ube cake crumbs.
Marylou started her business during the height of the pandemic in May 2020 brought about by the need to find avenues to spend her time at home during shelter in place. At that time she said ube cheese rolls were very popular and that inspired her to make her own version of the rolls. Nowadays, she sells her goodies at meetups and community events during her free time. The Ube Dream Cake is her number one seller and she is so excited to bring it to us at 7 Mile!
If you want more of her dream cake, make sure you order asap as the holidays are coming up —- the busiest time for all kinds of bakers!
Check out Marylou’s small business, MCM Seet Cravings (@mcmsweetcravings) on Instagram and Facebook!
Melanie Elvena - The Ultimate Ube Trifle
“I'm the owner and head confectionista of Marahuyo Confections where I specialize in creating desserts and confections inspired by the tropical and nostalgic flavors of the Philippines and beyond.
I started my business on Instagram in July 2020 after the pandemic cancelled my plans to do a pop-up dessert shop in San Francisco. I'm a self-taught pastry chef and cake artist with a big sweet tooth.
Marahuyo means 'enchanted' in Tagalog. Passionate about sharing my specialty desserts, I hope to bring a little slice of enchantment, joy, and celebration into life. My earliest memories from childhood are baking with my mom—from box cakes to her traditional Filipino cassava cake—so my confections are inspired by the nostalgic tropical flavors of the Philippines and beyond that I enjoyed growing up in the culturally rich and diverse Bay Area. I’ve honed my skills by making desserts for parties, bake sales, private events, and food pop-ups. But most of all, feeding my community is my love language and I just delight in seeing faces light up with that first bite.
I lead a double life. By day, I work in the arts planning events, festivals, concerts, performances, and all kinds of public art projects, especially for the Asian American and Filipinx communities. My day job inspires my desserts too because I meet a lot of creatives who are also passionate about food and use it as an avenue to express themselves and their identity.
I'm known for my ube, pandan, and coconut madeleine cookies and my vegan calamansi pie. They are all colorful and appealing to the eye but packed with flavor! I pride in being able to have offerings everyone can enjoy.”
For this competition, Melanie has created a new recipe: The Ultimate Ube Trifle. Packed with layers of her signature ube madelines soaked in coconut cream and spiked with Lambanog, ube mascarpone custard, macapuno, homemade ube halaya and pinipig, this ube-packed dessert is to die for!
You can find more about Melanie’s creations via Instagram and Facebook
Ava Marie Romero — Ube Snickerdoodles
(7 Mile House Ube BakeOff Champ 2019)
“I am Chef Ava Marie, a food blogger and award winning competition home cook born with autism and I am back to defend my title as 2019 Ube Bake Off Champion! I want to show other cooks that I still got this and prove my title as Dessert Finalist at the 2018 World Food Championships held in Atlanta. This new dessert recipe is my caramel-stuffed Ube Snickerdoodle will surely impress the 7 Mile House customers once again!”
Ava Marie was instrumental in featuring 7 Mile House on “Check, Please! Bay Area” and has joined our competitions namely the Adobo Cookoff 2019 and Ube Bake Occ 2019 which she won! Ava Marie works for Costco demo services on El Camino in South San Francisco by day and during her free time, concentrates on recipe development and joins many cooking and baking competitions nationwide.
