Boba Milk Tea Tres Leches Cake

Once upon a not-so-busy time, I baked and decorated personalized birthday cakes for my friends and family. Ranging from a green Volkswagen Buggy to a hot-air balloon, I used to go all out!

Over the long weekend, I had some extra time so I decided to make my friend Kelsey a cake for her birthday. If there's one thing Kelsey loves, it's BOBA! Have you tried it before? Have you even heard of it? If not, see the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea (actually.. you might need to Google it yourself because of the whole SOPA PIPA thing!). It's a popular dessert drink in younger Asian communities. 

I was simply going to frost a picture of a cup of boba onto a simple cake, but I thought.. why not dump a large milk tea with extra boba into a cake?!

And so I did.

(empty boba milk tea cup)

I love tres leches cake (a popular Latin American sponge cake soaked in three milks), so I decided to replace one of the "leches" with milk tea! 

I used this recipe and replaced the evaporated milk and half of the heavy whipping cream with the milk tea (and omitted the brandy). It turned out great! The cake was incredibly moist and you could really taste the milk tea flavor throughout the cake. 

I decided against simply sprinkling the boba on top to add some finesse, and decorated it like so:

(boba on a cake)

Believe it or not, I didn't use any special cake decorating equipment for this one. All I used was a spatula and a spoon! After frosting the cake, I dolloped drops of frosting along the outer perimeter, and topped those with single boba pieces. I put a large scoop of frosting in the middle and used a spoon to create a sort of "cup" for the remaining boba. This is also a great technique in case some guests don't care for the chewy, tapioca texture of boba as they can slice around it. 

(boba on a cake + fat boba straw)

To add some color, and hint at what's inside the cake, I added one of those fat straws that come with boba milk tea drinks. At first glance, the boba looks like blueberries, but the straw makes them realize what it is! 

(materials: paper, highligher)

The straw also serves as a stand for a celebration greeting flag! This would also be cute with a curled ribbon accent.

(yum)

The boba actually paired very well with the cake in case you were wondering. Bakeries should put boba on cakes more often! 

(taro almond milk tea with strawberry boba)

After trying this with the most basic boba milk tea, I'm very excited to try this with different boba flavors! You can do this with thai tea, almond, strawberry, honeydew, taro, and more. You can even use different boba flavors, like honey, green tea, and strawberry. The possibilities are endless! I also imagine this would work really well with cupcakes. I'm glad I was able to pay homage to one of my favorite delicious drinks through baking. It's also a great fusion of Asian and Latin American culture! 

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Do you like boba milk tea? What's your favorite kind?

Please feel free to ask me for more specific baking instructions! 

Comment below!

With love,

Tiffany R.

Dining at Tiffany's