Want to save money by making your own boba at home? It takes only three ingredients!
Making boba can be tricky at first because you have to get the texture just right, but once you get the hang of it, it will become intuitive! To help you all out, here's a video where we made boba for pumpkin spice milk tea. The boba-making begins at 1:40.
Brown Sugar Boba
Ingredients
100 g tapioca starch (plus more for dusting and kneading)
20 g brown sugar (plus extra)
60 ml water (plus extra)
Instructions
In medium bowl, whisk together tapioca starch and brown sugar until well combined.
In medium pan, add 2/3 of tapioca mixture and stir in water a bit at a time until you have thick sticky molasses-like consistency.
Turn the stove onto medium heat. Add in the rest of the tapioca and stir vigorously. Continue adding the water mixture to achieve a sticky dough-like consistency. If dough is too dry, add more water 1 tbsp at a time. If dough is too sticky, keep stirring. If dough is too liquid, add 1/2 tbsp of tapioca at a time. You should have a sticky, but smooth and pliable dough, similar to chewing gum.
Turn off the heat. Knead the sticky dough in your hands until it is more solid. Place the dough on a tapioca-dusted cutting board. Knead the dough until it can be formed into a smooth round ball (be careful because the dough will be hot!). If the dough keeps cracking, wet your hands to knead. If dough is too sticky to handle, sprinkle in some tapioca starch. (If dough keeps falling apart, put it back onto the pan, add water 1 tbsp at a time and stir until you have a slurry. Then turn on the heat and add tapioca starch 1/2 tbsp at a time and and stir until you achieve a gum-like dough.)
Cut dough vertically into long sections. Cut sections into ~1/2 cm pieces. Roll into balls and toss into tapioca-dusted bowl. Continue until all dough is used up, and be sure to keep the uncooked boba dusted.
In medium-sized pot, bring water to boil. Add uncooked boba to boiling water. Boil for 30 minutes, making sure to stir every few minutes.
Strain boba and soak in water (or syrup) until ready to drink.
Brown Sugar Syrup for Boba
Ingredients
cooked boba
50 ml water
60 g brown sugar
50 ml maple syrup
1 pinch salt
Instructions
Turn stove onto medium heat. In medium-sized saucepan, combine water, brown sugar, maple syrup. Stir until sugar completely dissolves.
Bring syrup to a bubbling simmer, then turn off heat and add boba.
Allow boba to cool in the syrup. Adjust syrup according to taste and quantity of boba.