Last weekend was a hoot, I made three recipes…and TWO boba recipes in one single day. I think I must have been delirious. It’s not easy so I’m going to milk it and share them both in separate posts. Been curious about making my own boba for a while now and since I had extra tapioca starch laying around from another recipe, this was the perfect time! The recipe is pretty easy, rolling the balls by hand were the most tedious part.

Here’s the ball of dough ready to be balled up.

Break up the dough and roll out skinny snakes, I am impatient so here are my snakes. Keep the remaining dough covered up since it dries up pretty fast.

Cut the snakes into smallish cubes and then roll each cube into balls. Oh my god do I appreciate machinery after this process…

What a pretty shot, here are the balls I rolled by hand.

Boil boil boil. Gotta boil it for 20 minutes, turn off heat and let it sit for an additional 20 minutes in the residual heat.

Look at how it looks after being cooked! Crazy yeah? The original recipe called for muscovado sugar, I don’t have that. I just used dark brown sugar. Gotta make do.

Sorry for the blurry pic, this is the boba cooking in the brown sugar syrup.

Sorry I don’t have pretty cups to show these drinks off! I made some strong black tea, added sugar, milk and ice to make our own milk tea! Tasted great, the balls were nice and soft. Was it worth it? Ehhh…well let’s just say if I want boba in the future, I will just go pay 4 bucks for a cup where professionals make it. It was fun to try though!

Brown Sugar Boba

Ingredients 

Boba:
45 g dark brown sugar
60 g water
90 g tapioca + for dusting
70 g dark brown sugar for syrup 

Milk Tea:
Black Tea Bag (1 C of Hot Water per tea bag)
2 T Sugar
½ C Whole Milk
Ice

Instructions:

1. Heat 45g of dark brown sugar with 60g of water in a small pot until melted, remove from heat and add about 1-2 spoons from the 90g tapioca, place back onto heat and mix until mixture has thickened (this is very fast so don’t blink!).
2. Remove from heat, add remaining tapioca starch to the mixture and mix. Place some tapioca starch to your surface and place the dough onto the area. 
3. Knead until the dough is formed and no longer sticky.
4. Pull out chunks of the dough (keep the remaining covered while you work on it) and roll out small snakes. Cut the small snakes into little squares. 
5. Roll the little squares into little balls. Dust with tapioca starch if needed.
6. Heat water in a pot and add the tapioca balls into the pot. Immediately stir the balls in the pot to prevent them from sticking to each other and to the bottom of the pan. It will take about 30 seconds for the balls to free float to the top of the surface on its own. 
7. Boil on medium-high for 20 minutes. Turn off heat, keep lid on pot and let the tapioca balls sit for an additional 20 minutes. 
8. Drain tapioca balls, heat new pan with 70 g dark brown sugar on medium. Add hot tapioca balls to the brown sugar and mix. No additional liquid is needed, it will form a thick syrup for the balls.
9. Brew hot tea and set aside to cool. Add tapioca balls to the bottom of the cup, add 2 T of sugar (less if you prefer), tea (cooled), milk and ice. Enjoy!

Recipe Inspiration: emmymade