Flavouring tapioca pearls

[hebari]

I'm experimenting with a few things and hoped for a little advice.

What I'm trying to do is flavour the water tapioca pearls are boiled in to get that flavour infused, the initial attempt was a solid fail. I boiled water with lime and palm sugar then dropped the pearls in, what happened was the pearls disintegrated. So I'm guessing the acid was the issue. Does anyone have an idea of how I could achieve this?

 

[chefpeon]

From the research I've done, it seems you can't really flavor boba pearls that are already made. All I could find is that some people would soak the pearls in a honey or sugar solution to sweeten them up.

Tapioca pearls are starch encased in a layer of gelatinized starch which is fairly impenetrable; that's what gives the pearls their shape. So flavoring them after they're made is difficult. However, I did find a video in which you can make your own pearls from scratch, and introducing various flavors in the process. This may be too labor intensive, but it is a solution.

 

[hebari]

Great, thank you it's what I suspected, I'm going to do a few more experiments and see what can and can't be done

 

[jrjong11]

From the research I've done, it seems you can't really flavor boba pearls that are already made. All I could find is that some people would soak the pearls in a honey or sugar solution to sweeten them up.

Tapioca pearls are starch encased in a layer of gelatinized starch which is fairly impenetrable; that's what gives the pearls their shape. So flavoring them after they're made is difficult. However, I did find a video in which you can make your own pearls from scratch, and introducing various flavors in the process. This may be too labor intensive, but it is a solution.

Thanks for the recipe video chefpeon. Looks amazing. Never in my 100 years, i can make that.

 

[jrjong11]

Thanks for the recipe video chefpeon. Looks amazing. Never in my 100 years, i can make that.

Hey chef, i tried to make it for the family last weekend. Ended up with burnt apron. Too sad.

 

[chefpeon]

Hey chef, i tried to make it for the family last weekend. Ended up with burnt apron. Too sad.

Well that's unfortunate. Where exactly did things go wrong?