Purple is a regal color. And that’s fitting for Divina Orbase because the founder of Beng Bread is Orlando’s ube queen.

It’s not the first crown I’d place on her head, though.

Orbase, 41, served the community in profound ways long before she began feeding it, working for many years as an oncology nurse before trading in her scrubs for an apron. She worked her final year in hospice.

“Oncology and hospice link up so much,” she explains, “but I think I transitioned too quickly.”

Empathetic by nature, Orbase felt the lines between patient and caregiver begin to blur. Burnout ensued.

“I knew I had to switch gears.”

These days, that care is baked into flawless, fluffy loaves of ube milk bread. Crinkle cookies, dense and delicious. Muffins with molten centers of cheese, ube jam, coconutty macapuno.

There’s also my newest addiction: furikake rice krispie treats ($3.50 apiece).

“This is like … the best thing I ever ate…” I Swyped in a nighttime text to Kaya co-owner Jamilyn Salonga Bailey. She introduced me to Orbase at a recent community market on the restaurant’s property. “And no, I’m not high.”

Well, maybe a sugar one.

But it was tempered with toastiness — Orbase browns everything, the butter, the cereal, the marshmallows, to achieve this effect — and the seaweed umami of furikake.

Salty and sweet, crunchy with bits of the savory Chex mix she makes, deeply nutty with the flavors the popular Japanese seasoning imparts, these things are snack genius, plain and simple.

Orbase’s new gig scratches her creative itch in ways the medical field never did but translates to another kind of love language that’s deeply fulfilling.

“My dad was older,” she explains. “He remarried my mom when he was 60 and she was 39. She was the breadwinner; he took care of us at home.”

On Sundays, her extended family would come for dinner. Siblings with children that could have been her cousins rather than nieces and nephews.

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“They’d come to spend time with Papa, who taught me: Clean the house, get the ice bucket ready, set the table. Eat before they come so you can serve them…. He created this community for everyone to connect. And all of that stayed within me.”

It was her mother, though, who, upon her retirement, taught Orbase to be adventurous in the kitchen, meticulous and patient.

“I really got the best sides of each of them.”

And now you can get the best of her wares, which is really subjective, because it’s all pretty outstanding and comes right from Orbase’s home oven.

When she began her cottage bakery, Orbase drew on the skills she learned making siopao (Filipino steamed buns, usually pork) alongside her mother.

“It was like my boot camp,” she says. “The dough, its kneading and proofing time, is very similar to milk bread.”

And Orbase’s milk bread, impossibly soft and fluffy, ideal for French toast or for pressing into a waffle iron (but really, you can’t beat it lightly toasted with a schmear of ube halaya-blended butter) it’s like eating a carb-laden technicolor cloud.

Available in purple (ube), green (pandan) and swirl varieties that incorporate both wheat and white flours, each comes in two sizes ($10, $12). Beyond that, the crinkle cookies (5-pack for $5) — among the most labor-intensive for its emulsification process that can take up to 30 minutes to get properly velvety before the dry ingredients are added — are the most popular.

You can follow Orbase on social media to find out where she might be popping up, but those looking for a fast fix or a guaranteed way to lock in what you want if you’re headed to one of her market stops is to pre-order online.

Much like the giants on whose shoulders she stands, Orbase’s small business operates in the same way explosive local successes like Jeff’s Bagel Run and even Gideon’s Bakehouse, where fans from around the world stand on line, did back in their earliest days.

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“Almost every Friday, I have a pickup time at my home in Winter Garden,” she says. In the case of special events, like that market in Kaya, customers can walk up, but also pre-order, ensuring that even when everything else sells out, their items will be there, waiting.

“I listened to Jeff [Perera, of Jeff’s Bagel Run] on the Lunchtime with Biggie podcast two or three times, just wanting to hear their process. He gives hope to all of us!”

Even so, Orbase has no Disney-level aspirations or even a desire to go brick-and-mortar. She’s content, growing the business, keeping her hands on every loaf and muffin and incredible Royal cookie (an oatmeal-coconut-cornflake masterpiece that comes in ube and pandan varieties).

“Each year, my husband and I decide on a mantra,” she says. “This year, it’s ‘Grow slow, grow steady.’”

Beng Bread is her passion. Her purpose.

“People always ask what you’d do if you won the lottery,” she says. “I’d still bake every day. I’d just give it all away for free.”

More info: bengbread.com; instagram.com/bengbread

Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com, For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.