Even if you're a hard core, no-frills coffee drinker, there's just something about calling for a tall, pretty glass of bubble tea and having your eyes and lips open up with child-like amusement as you go *glup-glup-glup* on the boba pearls stacked at the bottom, which keeps full-blown adults circling back to the slurp-able sweet treat.
But what if we told you, you could ditch your expensive rides to the mall and just make your own boba pearls at home? And it's not all that hard too!
Homemade boba pearls
Ingredients: Water - 1/4 cup, jaggery/brown sugar - 3tbsps, tapioca flour - 6tbsps
Method: Heat some water in a pan and add in the the jaggery and brown sugar. Let this completely caramalise, before you add in 3 tablespoons of the tapioca flour. The mixture will immediately start getting tacky. Once the flour has completely absorbed into the sugar mixture, go in with the remaining 3 tablespoons of the flour. Wait till the mixture starts feeling like a dough and then take it off heat. Dust a clean surface with tapioca flour and roll it out. Then mould them into thin strips and chop into tiny bites. Roll each in your hand to form the pearls. Once the pearls are formed, dust them with some more tapioca flour before cook them in boiling water for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes, let the cooked pearls rest for 30 minutes. off heat. Once the wait time is over, rinse them in cold water and then toss them in sweetener.
{{/usCountry}}Method: Heat some water in a pan and add in the the jaggery and brown sugar. Let this completely caramalise, before you add in 3 tablespoons of the tapioca flour. The mixture will immediately start getting tacky. Once the flour has completely absorbed into the sugar mixture, go in with the remaining 3 tablespoons of the flour. Wait till the mixture starts feeling like a dough and then take it off heat. Dust a clean surface with tapioca flour and roll it out. Then mould them into thin strips and chop into tiny bites. Roll each in your hand to form the pearls. Once the pearls are formed, dust them with some more tapioca flour before cook them in boiling water for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes, let the cooked pearls rest for 30 minutes. off heat. Once the wait time is over, rinse them in cold water and then toss them in sweetener.
{{/usCountry}}(recipe from Sara Ganesh Pandy)
This recipe will go great with any type of bubble tea or coffee. You can even serve it to kids in some turmeric milk, which is how Sara shared it with her kids.
So happy bubbling!