Before ube was everywhere in the dessert world, it was a big part of my Filipino American identity. Growing up in a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles, my mom would buy two cakes for my childhood birthday parties. She'd buy an ube cake for me and our relatives, and a generic chocolate or vanilla cake for all the kids from school. She and I both knew from experience that they'd refuse to eat the ube cake. Never mind the mild vanilla-like flavor; it looked "weird and purple" and that was enough for a kid to refuse a slice. Looking back on this, I wanted to encapsulate my experience as a Filipino American in a flavor. So, I combined a classic flavor of Americana-a malted shake-with this emblematic Filipino purple yam. Incidentally, the wheaty, cereal flavor of malt combined with ube tastes just like the ube birthday cake from my childhood. With both the malted milk and malted crunch, it's classic ube ice cream reinvented-Filipino ice cream grown up as American. Nearly eight years after making this a signature flavor at Wanderlust Creamery, it is still our bestseller by miles. To this day, the child in me is astonished to see kids of all races walk out with a purple ice cream mustache.