Filipino Merienda Treats Are Made for Modern Dessert Menus

When American pastry chefs started seasoning caramel sauces with sea salt and coating bacon with chocolate, their moves made waves in the food world. Yet Filipinos were blending sweet with savory years before the first bacon-and-chocolate cookie hit Instagram. Drawing from both Southeast Asian and Spanish pastry traditions, Filipino desserts can be simple or confoundingly complex, made with everything from beans and cheese to corn and ube, a strikingly bright purple yam. These are also texturally dynamic desserts...