How do they make boba

My goal is to have them as black as the ones you get in the milk tea shops. This means a little more experiments are needed. I tried adding the color to the water to make the tapioca dough. It was tricky because the water should be really hot, like just-boiled hot, when you add it to the tapioca flour or starch so you have to work fast or else you will get a weird texture that is wet but powdery at the same time doesn't make sense, I know, but believe me, it is possible and will never form into a dough.

So for those who have patiently waited for this tutorial, here are the steps involved in making homemade black tapioca pearls. Place black food color in a separate bowl and add a tablespoon of hot water to the food color. Add the rest of the water directly to the tapioca flour and pour the colored water to the bowl as well.

Divide the dough into 2 and roll each forming thin sticks. Cut them into small pieces. Try to make them as even in size as possible and should be small enough to pass through your straw. Add the tapioca pearls to the boiling water and let it cook for 15 minutes or longer until the desired consistency soft or chewy is achieved.

They will also become darker as they cook. Remove from heat and let it rest for a few minutes. They will shrink back to the original size and will turn black at this point. Transfer tapioca pearls into a sugar syrup or a bowl with a little water to prevent them from sticking together. It was really a lot of fun doing these homemade tapioca pearls, like playing with clay or play-doh so I think this will be a good and fun kiddie project.

I also find that they are much better than the dried ones. They cook faster, for one and I like the chewy texture that is exactly like the one they use in bubble teas we had in Taipei. Your email address will not be published.

I was wondering if I could use glutinous rice flour instead of tapioca flour? Would it have a difference? In my country, Brazil, two different types of tapioca flour are sold for different purposes: sour tapioca and sweet tapioca. The sour one is sour hahaha and the sweet one is not and it's more used to give food a certain consistency.

Which one should I use? Our recipe will show you how to make the perfect boba in under 30 minutes. No more crispy centered, mushy or hard boba pearls! Tapioca pearls boba are small chewy balls made from tapioca starch.

Typically, these spheres are black in colour and are used for bubble tea. Although boba has a gelatinous texture, no gelatin is used in the process of creation.

Therefore, this makes these small chewy spheres vegan friendly. Boba are naturally translucent and white in colour. However, black food colouring or brown sugar is often used in the process. This is to achieve the familiar black colour. Black boba pearls were created for an aesthetic purpose to contrast with the colour of milk tea. Tapioca starch is a gluten-free flour that comes from the cassava root plant. The native South American plant arrived in Taiwan between and , under Japanese rule.

Tapioca starch is mainly known for making thick and chewy textures in dishes. Sago is also a type of chewy ball that is used in Asian desserts. However, it is usually smaller in size and made from a variety of tropical palm stems. Sago is used more widely across different Asian cuisines. Cooked by themselves, there is very little taste to tapioca pearls. These small spheres can be made with brown sugar or steeped in a caramel syrup for a sweeter taste. Some people describe the texture of these small spheres to resemble that of jelly and gummy bears.

In Taiwan, the texture of tapioca boba pearls is referred to as Q or QQ. The term itself is hard to translate. However, it attempts to describe the mouthfeels of the soft yet resilient or bouncy texture.

The high percentage of starch in cassava root is the reason behind this chewy texture. Other dishes which are also described in Taiwan as Q include fish balls, mochi, taro balls, and tangyuan. Black tapioca pearls were first created as a cheaper alternative to sago. Milk tea with boba pearls was originally created in Taiwan during the s.

Milk tea was not an unfamiliar concept to the tea-drinking culture in East Asia. Meanwhile using boba pearls in desserts was already a common practice. The combination of both naturally kicked off in popularity when it was first introduced as a cooling summer drink and snack.

Although the inventor of bubble tea is much disputed, there are two stores in Taiwan which fight the claim of inventing the drink. As neither side won the patent lawsuit, this allowed many vendors to adopt and sell their version of the beverage snack worldwide. Boba can refer to the pearls alone or the milk tea drink as a whole. The pearls was nicknamed boba as a gimmick for having larger boba balls than all other competing stores.

It is widely believed that the term was adopted by overseas Chinese who referred to the beverage as boba. Today, the small black spheres are interchangeably called boba, pearls, or tapioca pearls. Tapioca pearls are made of starchy carbohydrates.

This means that they are calorie-dense and can be hard to digest. There are very little nutritional benefits but there are no adverse effects on health when consumed in moderation. Some manufacturers may use colouring, thickeners and preservatives to prolong shelf life and its appearance. These ingredients can lead to gastrointestinal problems. This is especially the case when consumed in large amounts.

The benefits of making tapioca pearls yourself are that you know exactly what ingredients are inside it. Also, you will be able to customise it entirely by making unique flavours like mango boba or matcha pearls. The disadvantage is the time it takes to make tapioca pearls. It is also difficult to get the consistency right on the first few attempts. Store-bought boba pearls will guarantee a degree of texture and taste to resemble those at a bubble tea shop.

Wu Fu Yu an is a brand that we recommend. The brand has created several instant options that can cook in 5 minutes. A lot of recipes will call for the use of black food colouring as this is a traditional method to make tapioca pearls. There is no problem with using food colouring. However, for the recipe below, we will be using brown sugar as a replacement. Using brown sugar is a good way to get a sweeter flavour and also colouring at the same time.

Calories have been calculated using an online calculator. Nutritional information offered on Honest Food Talks is for general information purposes and are only rough estimations. Everyone loves their boba pearls differently. Some will prefer them soft on the outside but with a slight resistance at the centre. Others might prefer the black boba made firm and al dente. Add a few cubes of ice, and top with milk.

Serve immediately with a boba straw. Stir well before drinking. Just add a little water a few drops at a time to make it softer. If the tapioca pearls crack when you roll them, moisten your hands with just the smallest amount of water and roll the pearls in your palms. This will make them smooth again.

If the dough is too soft, the resulting boba pearls may not retain a good shape when you cook them. The dough needs to have the correct texture of being firm, but not cracked. If you boil the water at the beginning for too long, you may end up with a drier dough with not enough water. It will be easier to roll the boba pearls smoothly, IF the dough is warm as well. Adjust the cooking times to the size of the boba pearls, and consistency of the dough. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Thank you thank you thank you! This was a perfect recipe for perfect boba pearls. I really appreciate how generous you were with all the thorough information. I followed your steps and they came out amazing! So labor intensive but totally worth it! Better than what you get in the shop. I made the matcha boba pearl and it was delicious!

My dough was too hard at first but I kept adding water until it was the right consistency, I have made boba pearl before so I have an idea of what the consistency should be. This recipe is a keeper, thanks so much!! Do I add less water or more tapioca starch?.. Hi Nel Once you have made the starter dough, you can add more tapioca starch to get the dough to stiffen. So if the boba pearls were too soft, you can add more starch to stiffen the dough.

The dough should be malleable when warm, and should become stiffer when it cools down. Hi Rachael I do use brown sugar for the boba pearls in the recipe. The white sugar is used if you want to make the boba pearls with a color. It was quite dry and crumbly at first then I added another 40ml of water which was way too much. Will add drop by drop next time. Thank you for this recipe along with the fantastic instructions and detailed tips on what can go wrong and what caused the problem and how to fix it.

I loved this so much that I made it for the first time, then made more the very next day. Have you tried to make them with something besides water… like coconut water or coconut milk to give the pearls a different flavor? Just curious to know if it would work. Hi Valerie I prefer to use water. As the water boils, it thickens because of the tapioca pearls, and with other liquids, this could cause sugars to concentrate and burn.

The sugar syrup at the end adds some flavor. The other way to add flavor is to add the flavor to the actual dough of the pearls. I hope that helps. Thank you so much for the detailed instructions!

This was my first time making boba and every time I ran into an issue, you had instructions on how to solve it. I encourage everyone using this recipe to make boba for the first time to read the entire post including the tips several times before starting and everything should come out perfectly!

I was just wondering one more thing, do I need to make the sirup if I want to put the boba pearls into another type of tea? Hi Maria As mentioned in the post, Boba pearls stick together uess they are kept in a syrup. I also like to cook it in the syrup to make sure the Boba pearls are cooked all the way through depends in the size. I do prefer to keep them in a syrup either the brown sugar or white sugar or honey syrup. You can choose not to, but any leftovers will definitely stick together.

I was just wondering if I need to use tapioca starch or if I can use corn starch? Hi Maria For this recipe you need to use tapioca starch to get similar results to boba pearls. Hope that helps! I love this recipe!! But I have had a couple of readers tell me that they have liked the subtle cocoa flavor. It is used to give the boba pearls a darker color predominantly.

If you prefer not to use cocoa powder, you can use food coloring as I have mentioned in the post too. Hi Marcus Unfortunately flour is not going to give the same results as tapioca starch. You also get best results if you let it dry before cooking them. Otherwise the boba pearls can dissolve in the water before being cooked through. Hi Delilah Did you roll them into perfect balls? And fresh u mean cooked right? If not how can I freeze cooked boba with the syrup so whenever I want I can microwave and drink it?

The paper towels are for storing freshly made uncooked boba pearls without drying them. I place them inbetween paper towels, and inside an air tight container. Hope that helps. Yummy and great instructions. How do I get the middle to cook properly? Once they are almost transluscent, they are kept in the hot water with the lid covered.

This step helps cooks the boba pearls through. While it rests, in the hot water it maintains the shape but cooks the center the pearls, turning the opaque centers, transluscent. Depending on the size and how dry the pearls are, the cook time and rest time changes. Check on them while they are covered in the hot water. When I boil them they just seen to disappear and the water turns to goo with almost no pearls left.

Hi Katie Usually the tapioca pearls dissolve if the dough was too soft or if the pearls were too small and they were boiled too long. If they were too soft, that means the dough needed more tapioca starch.

Make sure to let them dry before cooking them as well, and keep an eye on them to adjust the cook time as well. I hope that helps! With NO sugar added? Thank you. Thought the same technique would apply in making the pearls. You can leave out the sugar and the cocoa powder to make white pearls, but the amount of flour that you would need to add to make the final dough may change.

Make the starter dough and then add enough tapioca starch to create pliable smooth dough. Then you can create the pearls with the size that you are looking for , and it can be cooked the same way. Can I use cake mixer to knead the hot dough?

Hi Elizabeth The amount of dough here will be too little to be kneaded in a mixer. Hand kneading is easier and quicker. What do I do if my dough keeps turning into a neo-neutonian thing like when you put cornstarch in water? I had to toss both batches out and wasted my tapioca starch. As per instructions, you have to boil the water before adding the tapioca starch not cornstarch. You can knead it and if the lumps are small then it should becomes smoother as you knead it more.

If they are very large, then I would advise you to start again. Thank you so much for this detailed recipe. I would like to know if the pearls have to cook in the sugar syrup for the taste or to store them only? Hi Sasi I make my boba pearls the way that is stated in the recipe. Since the pearls already have some sugar it will have a slightly sweet taste. The sugar syrup serves as adding some flavor and also for storage to prevent sticking.

So what am I do wrong if the dough is not sticky like mentioned and the dough falls apart easily while trying to roll it out. Was it not gelatinous enough when i added the rest of the flour? Or it could also be because you added too much starch and the dough is too dry. Does the dough have an ooblek quality?

Or is it dry? Thank you so much for this detailed explanation of the boba pearls. I will be trying this very soon. I made this!