Filipino and Hawaiian sweets star at new Bay Area bakery

Sweet Pipers specializes in island-themed desserts like buko ube pie

When Rowena Ortega immigrated from the Philippines as a child, her mom gave her a mini toy oven that sparked her love of baking. Now, after more than a decade of making treats for family and selling at pop-ups, the self-taught baker recently opened her first shop for “islandthemed” desserts.

Sweet Pipers opened in late June at 2352-A San Pablo Ave. in Pinole. Wife-husband team Rowena and Jack Ortega serve their spin on treats from Hawaii and the Philippines, including pies layered with the nutty Filipino purple yam called ube and buko (young coconut meat), egg custard pies and more.

Rowena Ortega started the business selling cupcakes around 2009, taking inspiration from a piping bag to coin the name. In 2010, she introduced her first islandthemed dessert: Filipino buko pie.

However, it wasn’t until they started posting in a Filipino Facebook group during the pandemic that the pop-up took off and orders began flying in, she said.

To meet the demand, Sweet Pipers moved into a commercial kitchen in 2021 but now bakes out of its brick-and-mortar shop.

“It’s a tiny place — 500 square feet — but (it’s) enough for us to display and bake our desserts,” she said. Rowena Ortega, who works full time for a tech company, will continue to balance her two roles, but her husband quit his job to prioritize the bakery.

The bakery focuses on island-themed desserts, including a riff on chewy butter mochi that’s a hybrid between the Hawaiian confection and bibingka — a Filipino rice cake traditionally baked in banana leaves — along with mini chiffon cakes drizzled with ube or dulce de leche, and ube spread, a glutenfree treat made from ube and coconut cream.

But Sweet Pipers is best known for its buko ube pies ($26) — a hit dessert that Rowena Ortega introduced in 2020. After hearing these pies were trendy in the Philippines, she wanted to make her own version. She believes she’s the first person to bring the hybrid treat to the Bay Area.

The buko ube pie consists of a buttery crust — which isn’t flaky like a typical pie — topped with a cream sauce, cooked ube, raw buko, another layer of the sauce and then a top layer of crust, creating a distinct separation of vibrant purple and white. The buko cooks within the cream sauce as the pie bakes.

At the new shop, she plans to introduce new desserts, like a tiramisu flavored with ube instead of espresso. She also wants to experiment with different ingredients, including the fragrant, green pandan leaf and lilikoi, a type of passion fruit. Aside from desserts, she plans to include more beverages, including coconut, lilikoi and guava juices alongside the cantaloupe juice and pineapple juice with jelly that are already on the menu. She also hopes Sweet Pipers will serve more savory items from a deli counter.

But even as the Filipino baking scene flourishes in the Bay Area, Rowena Ortega said that her desserts are different, which is why Sweet Pipers’ logo describes the confections as “distinctive homemade delights.”

“Buko pie is not mine to begin with, but we tweaked it enough where there’s a lot of followers that are starting to like the buko ube,” she said. Then, after trying the buko ube, “they learn more about other things that we make — not your typical cassava or mochi that you find at any other store.”

Sweet Pipers. 2352-A San Pablo Ave., Pinole. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. WednesdayFriday. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.

Photos by Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Sweet Pipers has become known for its buko ube pie, with layers of the purple yam and young coconut.

Rowena and Jack Ortega recently opened their first shop in Pinole. The bakery started as a pop-up in 20o9.