Scoopable Brown Sugar Boba Ice Cream

Ingredients for ice cream

• 1 1/4 cup cold heavy cream
• 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk (or more or less to taste)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • I used dark brown sugar, but feel free to use light brown sugar. The flavor would just be slightly different.
• A pinch of salt

Ingredients for “boba”

• 1/2 cup hot milk
  • I used oat milk, but you can substitute this with the milk of your choice (whole milk, almond milk, coconut milk). To heat it up, I just put it in the microwave for about 30 seconds.
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee
  • This ingredient is mainly to make sure the boba pieces in the ice cream have that traditional boba color. I love the flavor of coffee, so I decided to throw that flavor into this recreation, but other appropriate substitutes would be cocoa powder or milk powder (plus brown food coloring). You can also leave this out as well if you don’t want this extra flavor or color.
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 cup (51g) sweet glutinous rice flour
  • I used the Koda farms brand Mochiko rice flour. Any brand would work, but make sure you’re not just buying straight up rice flour.
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Ingredients for brown sugar swirl

• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoons water

So the interesting thing is that we’re trying to recreate the boba texture in ice cream. If you ever tried to freeze actual boba (tapioca pearls), you’ll know that it will harden in the freezer instead of staying chewy. This is why we’re basically making a gooey-er mochi to simulate the boba texture even when frozen.

Instructions

1. First, let’s make the brown sugar ice cream! In a bowl, add heavy cream and whisk until you get soft peaks. I hand whisked it for probably about 8-10 minutes, but you can also throw it in a stand mixer for this to go quicker.
2. Add sweetened condensed milk and whisk again until you get medium peaks.
3. Stir in brown sugar and salt until evenly combined. At this stage, feel free to taste test the mixture to see if the sweetness level is to your liking. It should be pretty creamy at this point.
4. Now, let’s make the mochi “boba.” In a heatproof bowl, add milk, instant coffee, and brown sugar. Mix until all the instant coffee and brown sugar has dissolved.
5. Add sweet glutinous rice flour and cornstarch to the heatproof bowl.
6. Now, microwave on high for 30 seconds. Use a spatula and stir the mixture around.
7. Microwave on high for another 30 seconds. Use the spatula again and stir the mixture until combined. There will probably be parts that look more translucent than others, so make sure all parts are combined.
8. Microwave on high for another 30 seconds, and again, use the spatula to stir the mixture again. Evaluate the mixture. At this point, the mixture should be pretty gooey and sticky. Compared to my Easy Homemade Mochi recipe, it should be a little more gooey and less firm. Using the spatula mix the mochi mixture around until it’s cool enough to touch.
9. Next, let’s make the brown sugar swirl. Add brown sugar and water into a saucepan and heat the mixture until the brown sugar is dissolved and syrupy. You can also use the microwave if you’re in a rush.
10. Now, it’s time to combine the ice cream, the “boba,” and the swirl. My technique is to take a spoon and scoop out a spoonful of the mochi “boba” mixture and drop it into the ice cream mixture and then mix it up. Then, repeat until you’ve used up all the mochi “boba.” A quicker way to do this is to just dump all the mochi “boba” into the ice cream and use a spatula to mix it up. Next, pour the brown sugar swirl mixture in a swirl, and gently mix with a spatula.
11. Then, cover and freeze the ice cream until hard, usually around 4 hours to overnight. You’re done! Just scoop and serve!

Scoopable Brown Sugar Boba Ice Cream is my version of the super popular and viral brown sugar boba ice cream bar, which is absolutely delicious…and always sold out (at least the Happy Ice brand that I buy is). For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it’s basically an ice cream bar that has boba inside it that manages to stay chewy even though it’s frozen! While I made this scoopable version, you can easier pour the mixture into popsicle molds to replicate the bars as well. Honestly, making your own is not that difficult, and also enables you to try making different flavors too! The trick is to know how to make the “boba,” which is actually a mochi mixture in this case and helps keep that part of your ice cream chewy.