Cornstarch Boba – Strawberry Ice Cream Boba Drink

“What can you use instead of tapioca flour for making boba?” So many people have been asking me this question. For you all, I tried to make some cornstarch boba pearls.

Surprisingly, I found out that you can actually use cornstarch, as a good replacement for tapioca flour, to easily make boba at home.

Only 3 ingredients are needed for this recipe: cornstarch, strawberry ice cream, and strawberry syrup.

Cornstarch Boba vs Tapioca Boba

1. Cooking Process

The process of making boba with tapioca flour and cornstarch is similar. The only 2 differences are:

• You will only need about half the amount of cornstarch when it’s being used as a replacement of tapioca flour, because cornstarch is more potent than tapioca flour.

• Cornstarch boba is more likely to melt when boiled. So make sure you bring the water to a full boil before adding cornstarch bobas to the pot. In this way, the out layer of cornstarch boba will be cooked immediately, which can prevent the inside part from melting in water.

2. Look

Tapioca boba and cornstarch boba are similar in look. But if you observe carefully, tapioca baba is more glossy and transparent than cornstarch boba.

The color of my cornstarch boba looks lighter than my tapioca boba. It’s because that I used strawberry ice cream for making cornstarch boba, while I used strawberry juice when I made the tapioca boba.

3. Taste

Cornstarch boba tastes very different from tapioca boba.

Tapioca boba is popular for its unique chewy bouncy texture. Cornstarch boba is soft and much less chewier than tapioca boba.

To me, Drink with tapioca boba > Drink with cornstarch boba > Drink without any boba.

This recipe is for people who really want to try making boba at home while couldn’t find tapioca starch anywhere. If you have tapioca starch at home, you can follow my strawberry boba recipe or brown sugar boba recipe. 

After wearing braces for 2 years, my upper and lower teeth don’t line up perfectly anymore. I found that tapioca boba is too chewy for me. No matter how long I chew it, it never breaks down in my mouth. Usually I just swallow it whole, which can be hazardous so don’t learn this behavior from me.

Cornstarch boba is more brace-wearer-friendly. It can be easily crushed with fingers.

To balance the chewy and soft texture, it is actually a great idea to mix cornstarch and tapioca flour together, if you have both of them at home, when you make boba! You can substitute 40% of tapioca flour with 20% cornstarch. Let’s say the original recipe says 100g tapioca flour. You can use 60g tapioca flour + 20g cornstarch instead to create a perfectly balanced texture.

4. Storage

Both tapioca boba and cornstarch boba will turn hard once they get too cold. Based on my experience, cornstarch boba turns hard within 10 minutes after it gets cold, while tapioca boba can maintain chewy for a longer time (about 1 hour in iced drink).

So, make sure you enjoy your cornstarch boba immediately after they are boiled.

You can store uncooked cornstarch/tapioca boba in the freezer for up to 2 weeks. And you don’t need to thaw them before cooking.

Some tips for making boba with cornstarch and ice cream

1. How to avoid oobleck boba dough

Oobleck is a non-Newtonian fluid, which it’s a very strange texture between solid and liquid.

According to Science World, oobleck happens when “the starch does not dissolve, but remains in suspension”. When we add cornstarch to the water all at once, some starch particles won’t get a chance to be dissolved, they will be floating around in the water, in this way we will get an oobleck boba dough.

To avoid the formation of the oobleck dough, we need to divide the cornstarch/tapioca flour into 2 portions:

Firstly, add a small portion of the cornstarch/tapioca starch to the simmering liquid, stir and cook until the mixture is thickened, so that there is no liquid water in the pot.

Then turn off the heat, and stir in the rest of the starch. In this way, the second portion of the cornstarch/tapioca flour won’t get a chance to “meet” liquid water, so that they won’t be floating around or form oobleck dough.

2. Ice cream, brown sugar water, or juice

Traditional boba (see my brown sugar boba recipe here) is made from tapioca flour and brown sugar water.

Theoretically, you can substitute tapioca flour with cornstarch, potato starch, or sweet potato starch.

You can also substitute brown sugar water with any type of sweet drink you like. For example, I used freshly blended strawberry juice in this strawberry boba recipe. I will use melted strawberry ice cream plus some strawberry syrup in this current recipe.

Due to the different water content of different drinks, the corresponding amount of cornstarch/tapioca flour will also be different.

A boba dough should feel sticky to touch. If the boba dough can stick to your hand, you can add half tsp of cornstarch/tapioca flour to the dough, knead and repeat until the dough turns smooth.

If the boba cracks when you roll it, which means the dough is too dry, you can add a little bit of water to the rest of the dough, knead the dough until it’s smooth again. 

3. How to make cornstarch boba chewier

 Due to different molecular structures, cornstarch boba can never be as chewy as tapioca boba.

We can try our best to make our cornstarch boba chewier by chilling the boiled boba in iced water. However, cornstarch boba can become hard quickly once it gets cold. So make sure you drain the bobas from iced water quickly as soon as they get cold.

4. How to make cornstarch boba flavorful

Tapioca boba can naturally absorb other ingredients’ flavors better than cornstarch boba.

To make our cornstarch bobas flavorful, I’d always serve them with some syrup. You can either boil and thicken them in your homemade brown sugar syrup (follow this recipe‘s steps), or coating them with store-bought syrup (I used some strawberry syrup) before adding them to your drink.

5. What to drink with cornstarch boba?

I paired my cornstarch boba with strawberry milk and strawberry ice cream. You can also use milk tea (see recipe here) or matcha latte (see recipe here).

EQUIPMENT

• 1 Nonstick pan
• 1 Large Pot

INGREDIENTS LIST

• 100 g strawberry ice cream (Or any other flavors you like)
• 20 g strawberry syrup (May need to add 1 more tsp of strawberry syrup to the dough if it feels dry)
• 6 tbsps cornstarch (May need to add 1 more tsp of cornstarch to the dough if it feels sticky)

Step-by-step INSTRUCTIONS 

1. Add 100g strawberry ice cream and 20g strawberry syrup to a nonstick pan. Turn on medium-low heat, stir until the ice cream is simmering.

2. Quickly add 3 tbsps of cornstarch to the mixture, stir until dissolved.

3. Stir the mixture with a spatula for about 5 minutes until the mixture has been thickened – when you tilt the pan, the mixture won’t flow like a liquid.

4. Turn off the heat, add 3 tbsps of cornstarch to the pan, mix with a spatula.

5. Transfer the dough out to a kneading bowl or a kneading mat.

6. Knead the dough with your hands until smooth. (If the dough is sticky, you can gradually mix in an extra 1 tsp of cornstarch to the dough. If the dough is too dry, you can add 1 tsp of strawberry syrup or water to the dough.)

7. Pinch small pieces of dough by hand, roll them into ¼-inch-diameter balls. (The boba dough will become dryer once it cools down. If the boba cracks when you roll it, you can add a little bit of water to the rest of the dough, knead the dough until it’s smooth again.)

8. In a large pot, boil ⅔ pot of water. Use medium high heat. Add the bobas to the boiling water. Stir gently to prevent them from sticking to each other.

9. Once all the bobas are floating, cover the pot, simmer the bobas over low heat for 30 minutes.

10. Drain the bobas. Make them go through iced water for a chewier texture.

– To make a strawberry boba drink (1 serving 16oz)

1. Add 300ml milk and 1 tsp of strawberry syrup to a cup, stir to mix well.

2. Add ½ cup of boiled boba and 1 tbsp of strawberry syrup to a 16 oz cup, stir to mix well. Fill the cup with ice cubes and strawberry milk.

3. Dice 2 fresh strawberries into small cubes. Sprinkle the diced strawberries on the top of the drink.

4. Optionally, add one scoop of ice cream on the top.

My other strawberry recipes you will also like: