Twrl x iheartbaking Vegan Boba Milk Tea Cake

We are in LOVE with our latest Twrler creation from Michele Chock, a super talented baker, author of the Hello Kitty Baking Book, and the creator of the Hello Kitty macaron. Michele's latest project and collaboration with Twrl is a Vegan Boba Milk Tea cake — a vegan cake made with Twrl Jasmine Milk Tea, filled with vegan milk tea pastry cream, and covered with vegan swiss meringue buttercream! Make sure to check out her blog and Instagram (@iheartbaking) for all her other creations 

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Twrl x iheartbaking Vegan Boba Milk Tea Cake

By Michele Chock of @iheartbaking

Ingredients

Vegan Milk Tea Cake
1 cup All Purpose Flour
¾ cup plus 2 Tbs sugar
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1/3 cup aquafaba*
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup vegan butter**
¾ cup Twrl Jasmine Milk Tea

Vegan Milk Tea Pastry Cream

1 can Twrl Jasmine Milk Tea
1/8 cup sugar
2 ½ TBL cornstarch
1 TBL vegan butter**
½ tsp vanilla extract

Vegan Swiss Meringue Buttercream
¼ cup aquafaba*
10 oz powdered sugar
10 oz vegan butter
½ tsp vanilla extract

Decoration

Black fondant
White fondant
Black gel-based food coloring***
Brown gel-based food coloring***
1 boba straw

Directions

To Make Vegan Milk Tea Cake

Whisk sugar and vegan butter until creamy. Add aquafaba and vanilla and mix until combined. In a separate bowl, sift flour with baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Alternate adding flour mixture with Twrl Supreme Jasmine Milk Tea.

Use cooking spray to coat four 4-inch round cake tins, and line the bottoms with parchment rounds.  Pour batter into prepared tins, divided evenly. Bake at 325 for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick insert into the cakes come out clean. Let cool completely.

To Make Vegan Milk Tea Pastry Cream

To a medium saucepan, add Twrl Supreme Jasmine Milk Tea, sugar, and cornstarch. Whisk to dissolve. Add the vegan butter and vanilla extract.

Heat over medium heat, whisking constantly until the butter is melted. Continue whisking over heat until the mixture thickens. 

Remove from heat as soon as the mixture has thickened. Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap directly on top of the pastry cream immediately to prevent the pastry cream from forming a crust. Let cool for 20 minutes before transferring to the refrigerator. Refrigerate for another 30 minutes.

Once chilled, the pastry cream will have thickened even more. Transfer the cream to a stand mixer and whisk it on high-speed for 10-15 seconds. This will make the pastry cream smooth and light.

To Make Vegan Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Combine aquafaba and powdered sugar in a bowl. Place bowl over a pot of simmering water, and whisk the mixture constantly but gently until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and whisk on high speed until the mixture holds soft peaks. Continue whisking until the mixture becomes glossy and the outside of the bowl feels cool. 

Add vegan butter one chunk at a time and whisk on medium-low speed, until all of the vegan butter has been added. Continue whisking at high speed until the mixture is smooth and fluffy. Add vanilla and whisk to combine.

This buttercream will be very soft, almost like the texture of whipped cream. If the buttercream is too soft to work with, refrigerate for 30 minutes until the buttercream is a little more firm.

To Assemble

Use a serrated knife to cut each cake in half horizontally, turning each cake into two layers. You should now have 8 cake layers. 

Set aside ½ cup of the buttercream, and then fill a piping bag with the remaining buttercream. Place the first layer on a cake board or cake stand and pipe a ring around the perimeter of the cake. Then place a dollop of the pastry cream in the middle of the ring and use an offset spatula to smooth it evenly. Place the second layer on top of the pastry cream and repeat until all the layers are stacked. (You will not add buttercream and pastry cream to the last layer because the top of the cake will be frosted). 

Cover the top and sides of the cake with the buttercream, smoothing it with an offset spatula. If the cake feels wobbly from it’s height, insert a bamboo skewer from  the top of the cake all the way through to the cake board. Chill the cake in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, and then repeat with another coat of buttercream. If at any time the buttercream becomes too soft, refrigerate both the cake and the buttercream for 30 minutes before continuing.

To Decorate

Roll out the black fondant very thin and use a small circle cutter to cut out 2 eyes. (The wide end of a piping tip works well for this). Roll out the white fondant very thin and use a small piping tip to cut out 4 small dots (I used a Wilton #5 tip). Attach two white dots onto each black eye. Then with the black fondant, a small thin snake, arrange it into a half moon shape, and flatten it into a small smile shape. Add the eyes and smile to the cake.

With the reserved buttercream, add a few drops of black and brown gel-based food coloring. Mix until the buttercream is the color of boba. Fit a piping bag with a medium round tip (I used a Wilton #10 tip) and fill the piping back with the brown/black buttercream. Pipe boba-sized dots around the bottom of the cake to resemble boba in the bottom of a cup of boba milk tea. Top the cake with a boba straw inserted at an angle.

Refrigerate for up to two days. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Makes one eight-layer 4-inch cake

Notes:

* Aquafaba is the liquid found in canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans). Just strain a can of chickpeas and reserve the liquid!

** There are many vegan butters out there but I used Earth Balance organic whipped buttery spread.

*** If you don’t want to use food coloring, you can also use dark cocoa powder and/or black cocoa powder.

Love milk tea/boba tea flavored-anything?! Join the Twrler Innovation Program!

We are foodies ourselves and would love to see what YOU can create with Twrl! If you love cooking or baking and would like to create a recipe with Twrl Milk Tea, we would love to invite you to join our Twrler Innovation Program! It's a place for innovators, creators and foodies such as yourself to flex your creative muscles and come up with inventive bubble or boba tea inspired confections!  The program comes with a Sampler Pack of Twrl so you can innovate and enjoy some delicious milk tea for yourself!

Our program is by invitation only. To join our program:

1. Sign up here if you have friends or colleagues interested in applying, please send them this link and include your name as a referral.
   
   
2.  Email us at hello@twrlmilktea.com subject “Twrler” and tell us when you want to get started and what months are you interested in creating for.

We are super excited to taste your milk tea creations whether it be sweet or savory — the sky's the limit. It can be anything from a cake, muffin, ice cream or cream puff … surprise us! We can’t wait to see your Twrl creation and for you to be our guest blogger.  Feel free to experiment with vegan only recipes as well. Twrl is plant-based and dairy free, and a great alternative for those with allergies. Happy 'twrling!