How To Make Boba With Flour (All Purpose Wheat Flour)

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Boba made from all purpose flour.

This article will cover how to make boba pearls from all-purpose flour. It does work, and the results are actually quite pleasing. This will go into step-by-step instructions on how it is done, along with the exact ingredients needed to do it. Boba pearls made from all-purpose wheat flour is actually easier to make from scratch than tapioca pearls are. They are also a lot easier to deal with while they are cooking.

The texture of boba made from all-purpose flour is about the same as the texture in the inside of cooked tapioca pearls (chewy) when they are made from scratch and cooked correctly.

The difference between the two is that the all-purpose flour boba pearls do not have a ‘soft’ texture on the outer layer like the tapioca pearls do when they are fully cooked. The boba pearls made from all-purpose flour have a very similar chewy texture when compared to tapioca pearls, but it carries throughout the entire boba. The chewy texture is the same on the inside and the outside of the flour boba pearls.

The elasticity of the all-purpose (wheat) flour boba is a lot better than the tapioca pearls, after they are cooked. The wheat flour boba can be compressed without actually crushing. It is more useful for creating boba food art out of the boba to make different shapes, even after it is cooked fully as a sphere.

Tapioca pearls will go back into their original shape after being gently compressed, after they are cooked, while wheat flour boba will stay compressed. The wheat flour boba can return back to its original shape after they are manually compressed back into a sphere-like shape, without suffering damage like tapioca pearls would.

All-purpose flour boba pearls also cook faster than traditional tapioca pearls when it comes to cooking each to the point of obtaining their optimum texture.

How To Make Boba With Flour

Here is how boba is made with flour. It doesn’t require a lot of equipment or ingredients to make.

Equipment needed to make boba with flour:

  • A non-stick pan.
  • A heat resistant spatula.
  • A measuring cup.
  • A measuring spoon.

Ingredients for making boba with flour:

  • 1.5 ounces of water.
  • 3 to 4 tablespoons of brown sugar.
    • The amount of brown sugar will determine the color and the sweetness. More will make the pearls darker.
  • A pinch of xanthan gum.
  • All-purpose wheat flour.

1. Put 1.5 ounces of water into the pan.

1.5 ounces of water in a pan.

More water will make more flour boba pearls, since the water has to be balanced more with more flour. Also, the other ingredients will have to be increased to the proportion of the water used. For now, let’s just go with 1.5 ounces of water.

2. Heat the pan on the stove on medium-low heat.

The pan needs to be heated in order for the boba dough to form and make the flour boba pearls form properly.

3. Put 4 tablespoons of brown sugar into the pan and mix it in.

Brown sugar in the pan.

You can add more sugar if you like, but this was enough to sweeten the all-purpose flour boba pearls for me. The flour boba pearls retain sweetness better than the tapioca pearls. Mix the sugar into the water in the pan.

4. Add a pinch of xanthan gum to the mixture in the pan. Mix it in.

A pinch of xanthan gum added in.

Do not add too much xanthan gum. It will ruin your dough and your boba pearls later on. Only a pinch is needed. Thoroughly mix it into the mixture.

5. Add half a portion of all-purpose flour into the mixture in the pan. Thoroughly mix it in.

All-purpose flour added to the mixture in the pan.

Half of the amount of the entire mixture in the pan needs to be all-purpose flour. Add this amount into the pan and immediately mix it into the mixture.

6. Continously stir the mixture on medium-low heat until it thickens into a sticky really thick paste.

Dough for flour boba pearls stirred continously.
Dough for flour boba pearls thickening.
Flour boba dough ready for the next step.

When it forms into a thick sticky paste, then it is ready for the next step. Do not add in more flour, just keep cooking and stirring the mixture in the pan. It is very important that this happens first before more flour is added. Try to keep the contents together and in the center of the pan while stirring.

7. Add a portion of flour to the pan around the size of the sticky dough paste. Knead it into the dough.

More all-purpose flour added into the pan.

Add in the flour and place the sticky dough on top of the flour in the pan. Knead the flour into the dough by using the spatula. Keep kneading in the flour until the dough is no longer sticky, and it can no longer hold anymore flour.

Sticky dough needed with more flour in the pan.

8. Take the flour dough out of the pan and continue to hand-knead the dough with more flour.

Dough taken out of the pan and kneaded further by hand.

The dough is not quite ready yet, but it is almost there. Incorporate more flour into the dough by kneading it with your hands. It should be kneaded in well and have a slight dry flour feel to it when it is done. The dough should not stick to the hands at all when kneaded. Doing this is very important if you want easy-to-cook, good quality flour boba pearls.

Dough for making all-purpose flour boba pearls.
Finished flour dough ready for forming flour boba pearls.

If for some reason the dough isn’t forming and looking like the pictures or instructions here in this article, then please refer troubleshooting how to fix the dough. It will help with any problems with crumbly or sticky dough.

9. Form the flour boba pearls from the flour dough.

Uncooked boba made from all-purpose flour.
Flour boba pearls formed from flour.

Take pieces of the dough and roll them in the palm of your hands to form the boba pearls for cooking. Make sure that the pearls are big enough, but small enough to fit in a boba straw. You can use a boba straw to check the dimensions. Make one pearl, check the size of it with the straw, then make all the rest of the pearls around the same size as the first. Gently roll them in a coat of flour to keep them from sticking to one another.

How To Cook Boba Pearls Made From Flour (All-Purpose Wheat)

Boba pearls made from flour do not cook at the same times as traditional tapioca pearls, they cook in about half the time.

Here are the instructions for cooking boba pearls made from flour:

  1. Fill a pot with plenty of water (atleast 50% water).
    • There needs to be plenty of water for all the boba pearls to freely move, and to be fully submerged in the water.
  2. Heat the pot to a rolling boil.
    • The water needs to be boiling with a lot of motion first before the boba is placed in the water.
    • The temperature of my water was at 425°F.
  3. Pour the flour boba pearls into the pot, spread out evenly.
    • Try to avoid pouring the boba pearls all in one spot with the pearls stacked on one another.
  4. Immediately, but gently, stir the boba pearls 3 times every 30 seconds.
    • The pearls don’t stick as easily as other boba types when they are cooked, but it still helps to stir them.
  5. Let the flour boba cook for 20 minutes.
  6. Turn off the heat and let them sit in the hot water for 10 minutes.
  7. Remove the flour boba from the pot, strain them, and thoroughly rinse them under cool water.
    • When the boba is being rinsed, it will need to be done thoroughly to remove all the excess from them, unlike other boba types that are cooked.
They need to be rinsed thoroughly until all the excess is removed.
Thoroughly rinsed flour boba pearls.

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