This is a cute tartlet emulating all of the beloved flavors in a good cup of bubble milk tea. I was inspired to make these from an Instagram post by a Japanese pastry chef (which I forgot to save :() I've tried to recreate it using my very limited pastry skills.

In STARK contrast to my 2 ingredient mug cake 'ible, this recipe will be a labor of love and very extensive. But upon finishing them I was so proud and in love with how cute they are! I feel very accomplished :)

This recipe makes 6 individual tart servings. You'll want to make the pastry dough and the pastry cream the night before as they need to chill.

There are 4 parts to this recipe:

The pastry cases
- with some experimenting, I have found a way to make these without expensive perforated tart rings!
The black tea pastry cream
- A milk tea flavored creme patisserie
The boba
- I will show you how to make an optional brown sugar syrup for the bubbles just like they do in the bubble tea shops!
The "milk cap" cream topping
- modeled after the whipped topping many shops will add to your bubble tea drinks.

Step 1: Pastry Cases: Ingredients

For the tart shells/ pastry cases you will need:

105g cold butter
105g powdered sugar
45g beaten egg
1 tsp salt
225g all-purpose flour
75g almond flour

Step 2: Pastry Cases: Dough

1. Whisk cold butter until soft, then add sugar and whisk until combined.

2. Add egg slowly (in parts) whisking to thoroughly combine.

3. Sift in your dry ingredients and fold everything just enough to get it going, then tip onto a preferably cool work surface and use your hands to bring the dough together.

4. Form the dough into a log, and use your palm to smear the dough in sections across your work surface. This will help the dough gain a nice biscuit texture without being over-worked.

5. Take a piece of parchment paper and flatten the dough a bit before covering with a second piece of parchment. Roll the dough out to a thickness of 2mm (If you find that your parchment paper is creasing, lift the paper, place it back down and try to roll out the crease)

Step 3: Pastry Cases: Cutting Shapes

Take the bottom of your muffin tin or cake mold and find a circular cookie cutter or a round object that's roughly the same diameter. Use this to make 6 circle pieces in your dough by pressing and rotating.
Take a long strip of parchment and line it around the walls of your chosen mold. Cut excess. Take this long parchment strip and lay it on top of your dough sheet. Using a sharp knife. trace it 6 times to get 6 strips.
Re-cover with baking paper and rest in fridge for 3 hours or overnight.

Step 4: Pastry Cases: Shape and Bake

For this next part, you will want to work swiftly, as the pastry dough softens quickly and becomes difficult to work with. If this happens, just re-cover with baking paper and stick it back in the fridge.

Shaping

Brush your muffin tins or chosen mold with melted butter.
Take your pastry dough out of your fridge and line the molds with the strips. Press the seams shut.
Place your circular discs at the base of your molds, using your fingers to seal the seams.
If anything rips, just take the excess dough and patch it up with your fingers.
Lightly prick your dough with a fork until you have even perforations.

Baking

Cut squares of parchment and cut according to the picture.
Line each of your pastry doughs with the parchment and fill each dried rice, beans, or pie weights
Pre-heat your oven to 320F and bake the tart shells for 15mins.
Remove from oven, increase the temperature of the oven to 350F.
Remove parchment and any pie weights and work quickly to avoid being burned, transfer each shell out of the mold, and onto a baking tray.
Return the shells to the oven to bake for about 3-5 mins or until golden.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Step 5: Pastry Cases: Making Them Pretty :)

Take a grater or handheld Microplane and gently make the edges of your pastry cases flat and even.

Step 6: Pastry Cream: Ingredients

For the milk tea pastry cream you will need:

2 black tea bags (I used lipton)
250 ml milk
50g sugar
3 egg yolks
25g cake flour (AP works too)
250 ml heavy cream

Step 7: Pastry Cream: Make

1. Mix the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl. add the cake flour and mix well.

2. Simmer milk and add black tea bags to steep.

3. Slowly add milk tea to egg mixture and mix well. Be careful not to cook the eggs!

4. Quickly cook combined mix in a pot while constantly stirring until it thickens to a pudding consistency.

5. Stir quickly so it doesn’t stick to the pan. Let cool, then place in a bowl.

6. Place cling film so the custard doesn't form a skin. Chill in the fridge for 3 hours or overnight.

Step 8: Bubbles: Preparing Them

I used instant tapioca pearls that you can find at an Asian grocery near you. Cook them according to package instructions.

Mine called for boiling and cooling in cold water.

Step 9: Bubbles: Optional Sugar Syrup

A lot of bubble tea shops will "stir-fry" their cooked tapioca pearls in some syrup to give it a nice sweet caramelized flavor. I think it adds a great depth of flavor so I never skip this step.

Take a pot and add a shallow layer of water.
Simmer it with some brown sugar until you get a syrup.
Pour the syrup over your cooked pearls and stir.
Transfer the pearls and syrup back to the pot and on medium heat, stir everything until the syrup reduces just a bit more and everything is well combined.

Step 10: Whipped Topping

I tried to emulate the milk cap that has been trending in the bubble tea world.

This is just a simple whipped cream with salt and cream cheese.

Take some whipped cream and whip it into stiff peaks, incorporating sugar to taste and a hefty pinch of salt.
Soften some cream cheese, and whip this mixture into the cream until combined.

Step 11: Prepare for Assembly

There are a lot of components here to keep in order so we want to do some mise en place to make assembling our tarts an easy task.

Pastry Cases:

No prep

Pastry Cream:

Take your pastry cream out of the fridge and give it a good mix with a whisk or spatula to loosen it up to a pipable phase.
Fill a ziploc bag with the cream and right before assembly, snip a corner of the bag to make it pipable.

Tapioca Pearls:

No prep

Whipped Cream:

Prepare a piping bag with a leaf tip
Fill your piping bag with the whipped cream.

Step 12: Assembly!

Fill your pastry cases with the tea cream/custard. You want to fill it pretty much all the way.
Pipe your whipped cream into whatever design you like. I chose to do a nice squiggle shape.
Using a spoon, gently ladle a nice scoop of bubbles and nestle it next to the whipped cream.

That's it!

Step 13: Enjoy!

These will last in the fridge for about a week, but I highly recommend eating them fresh as the custard will eventually make the tart shells soggy and the tapioca pearls will go hard.