Popping Boba    

Originated in Taiwan, popping boba is a fruit-flavour, colourful, beautiful, tasty, healthy, and fun-to-eat topping for bubble tea, ice cream, frozen yogurt, and a variety of desserts and beverages. Its gel-like skin will burst in your mouth when bitten. Then you will be able to taste the fruit juice center of the popping boba.

Popping boba is made from fruit juice plus sodium alginate and calcium chloride. These two food additives are necessary ingredients for the spherification process.

To make Popping Boba, you can mix any liquid whatsoever with sodium alginate, which will then be dropped into a calcium chloride solution. Each droplet will form into a small ball in the calcium setting bath, causing the formation of a thin gel-like skin that can burst when squeezed.

A well formed Popping Boba will be round as a ball, feel squishy and pop and release liquid when squeezed.

Fun fact, Popping Boba can also be used in muffins and baking (they remain intact, to be popped upon eating.)

Popping Boba Pearls Recipes   

INGREDIENTS to make Popping Boba *( that we sell here at Keto Store) 

Rinse station Ingredients = 2 Cups fresh water in a separate container + a sieve  

Calcium bath ingredients = 1 L warm water to 30 g Calcium Chloride* 

Popping boba mixture ingredients
various options outlined below as example quantities
• mango popping = 2 tbsp. mango cubes + 200 ml water + 3 g Sodium Alginate*
• watermelon popping boba = 200 ml watermelon juice + 3 g Sodium Alginate* powder
• coffee popping = 1 TBS instant coffee + 30 ml hot water + 180 ml water + 3 g Sodium Alginate*
• diet soda popping = 4 TBS diet soda of choice + 3g Sodium Alginate*

Hint: the amount of Sodium Alginate you add depends on how thick the food liquid is that you are adding it to. Suggest you make up a batch using the % in the examples above, then test out a few drops. Rinse, then pop them in your mouth to determine if the skin that has formed is thin enough to pop.
• If too thin, add slightly more Sodium Alginate in 0.5% testing each increment to perfect your mixture.  
• If too thick, then add more juice/water to dilute / lower the amount of sodium alginate to liquid food ratio.    

METHOD
1 - Mix 1/2 of the liquid or food puree you wish to have inside the popping boba with the sodium alginate and then add the other 1/2 of the liquid food.
2 - Blend until completely mixed. Expect to see foam bubbles and the food goes thicker.
3 - Remove any bubbles from the surface of the mixture with a spoon. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in the fridge for at least 1 hour or overnight to allow the bubbles to fully disappear.
4 - Prepare the calcium bath by placing warm water and Calcium Chloride into a bowl, then stir until dissolved. This solution can be re-used over several days.
5 - Take the Sodium Alginate mixture out of the refrigerator and fill up either a dropper or a syringe with the bubble free mixture. You can practice dropping the mixture one drop at a time back into the Sodium Alginate until you get the knack of one drop at a time.
6 - To create popping boba balls, hold the syringe with the Sodium Alginate mixture 4 inches above the calcium bath.
7 - Squeeze a drop of the mixture, one at a time into the calcium bath and let them sit for one minute.
8 - After one minute, fish out the bobas with a sieve, and rinse them in plain water before resting them on a plate or in a container. Make as many as you need to finish the sodium alginate mixture you've made.

For your Health and Safety avoid eating or touching straight calcium chloride directly. Because pure calcium chloride can create heat when it reacts with moisture on the skin. In the method we use clean water to rinse off any residual calcium chloride on the surface of popping boba, so that it's perfectly safe to consume.

Tips and hints to get a successful spherification
• Refrigerate the food or liquid that is being made into the popping boba, so that it is cold before you start.
• Bubbles make the food more difficult to achieve spherification. So it's best to remove these with a spoon from the surface of the sodium alginate mixture.
• If the content of your chosen flavour has too much calcium in it, (that can react with the sodium alginate) and makes a slime / jelly.
• Acidity pH in items like milk, yoghurt, some fruits and juices affects spherification, as the desired reaction only works with a pH between 4 - 10 - a quick google will tell you the pH of what ingredient you're intending to use inside the boba.
• Technique to drop one drop at a time by using a dropper / syringe or drop from height.
• Time in the bath - 1 minute the skins pops, 4 mins the whole sphere will go solid.
• Store pearls in the fridge.