- There's a reason why I'm doing this.
Chiffon cakes need to be...
Aah!
Hey, guys, it's Inga.
As you guys know, I love making trendy food,
and I love trying foods from different parts of the world.
Specifically, I want to try and recreate
some of the most viral cakes around the world.
This time, my brother challenged me
to make this boba tea lava cake from Taiwan.
Here's the thing.
I know this cake.
I have seen this cake many a times too on my Instagram,
and it is the cake that I was like,
"There is no way I'm making this happen."
But I can't let him know that.
And so, here we are, and I'm gonna figure it out.
Skyler, come on in.
(drum rolls)
(audience cheering)
- Oh, is that me?
- That is you.
That was us in China.
- [Skyler] China, last year.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good times.
Tell me about this cake.
- Okay, so it's basically a chocolate lava cake,
but not really, because instead of the chocolate inside,
it has boba on top of the cake
with the whole like wrap kind of thing,
and when you pull it up, everything's gonna drop down.
- Where did you first see this cake?
- I saw it on Instagram, on YouTube, on Facebook,
but mostly on Instagram.
- I catch it on Facebook too, okay.
- Yeah, there's a lot.
- Why do you want me to make this cake for you?
- You're really the only person that I can ask
to make this cake for me.
(speaking foreign language)
- See you in (speaks foreign language).
- Eight hours?
Okay.
(speaks foreign language)
- Bye. - Bye bye.
- What?
(speaks foreign language)
What the heck?
All right.
Challenge accepted.
Let's get started.
Okay.
Coffee first.
All right.
We have a lot to do, so let's do it.
There's a couple things we need to do.
There is the cake itself,
which I'm gonna do as a chiffon cake,
'cause it's spongy, it's fluffy, it's soft;
the lava cream; and then there is also the boba.
So I'm gonna start by doing the cake,
'cause that needs to bake, and then it needs to cool.
Chiffon cake it is!
I have a recipe here.
Nobody see it.
It's my mom's secret chiffon cake recipe.
Hers was in Chinese, so I translated it to English.
The first thing I need to do
is to make the Earl Grey milk,
which is going to be the base of the cake,
and it's going to give it that wonderful
Earl Grey tea flavor.
And my brother really likes Earl Grey tea.
It might give me bonus points.
I'm just going to pour the milk, cook this on low heat.
While the heat is milking up,
while the milk is heating up,
I am going to cut a few bags of tea.
Four bags.
Boom.
This smells so good.
Can I just...
Okay.
The milk doesn't have to be boiling.
You just want it to be hot enough,
where the tea can steep in it properly.
(clock ticking)
What am I doing?
While this is waiting, I could be so much more useful.
I'm gonna separate the eggs.
♪ Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun ♪
In here.
Nice.
I know some people, they just like put them all in one bowl
and then scoop out the yolks with their hands.
I like to live on the edge.
Oh, I can smell the milk!
Milk, please hold.
Just got egg in my hair.
What do you call this?
Chaotic energy?
Here we are.
We cracked all our eggs.
The milk is now ready.
My hands are not ready though, so give me one second.
I'm gonna turn this off.
You can feel that it's super warm.
Sprinkle this in there.
Give it a little stir.
This smells like milk tea already.
Oh, this smells so good.
Cover this up, and set this aside.
Basically, you're just gonna let this tea steep
until the milk becomes cool again.
This is all good.
Let's get the meringue going.
Stand mixer.
Let's go.
I'm gonna have to add in the cream of tartar.
And then we have some sugar.
While that's going in the background,
let me just clear this up a little bit.
Looking good.
That's exciting.
The tea still smells amazing.
You see how the color is changing a little bit?
I'm just breaking up the egg yolks.
Most of the air will be coming from the meringue mixture,
but you still want to beat this a little bit
with the sugar.
We're actually supposed to put the milk
into the egg yolk mixture.
If your milk is too hot,
you're gonna end up with scrambled eggs in your cake,
and nobody wants that.
I think we're good to pour it out.
Handy sieve.
Squeeze all of it out.
Ta-da!
Earl Grey milk.
Can I just drink it like this?
Definitely very Earl Grey-ee.
I like that.
And the temperature is good now.
I'm gonna pour this milk in slowly.
Can you see the color becoming a little lighter?
That looks pretty good.
We can add in the cake flour and baking powder.
Stir it all together.
Looking good so far.
I'm gonna add the oil, slowly but surely.
Helps make it a little lighter in texture,
keeps it moist, as people like to say.
It's looking pretty smooth.
Yo.
It's a little bit ribbony.
We're on the right track.
There.
Let's get folding.
We could eat this as is.
I'm gonna gently fold this in now.
Oh yeah.
You can feel how soft it is.
I'm just trying to be really careful here
and not beat the air out.
It's a nice color too.
I'm making sure everything is combined evenly.
Ho ho!
That was satisfying.
I can feel how airy this is, and it's so smooth.
I cannot wait to eat this.
You don't want to mix in too much
because otherwise there's not gonna be any air left.
As long as it's combined
and you don't see random streaks in places, we're good.
Put it in the cake mold.
Ho ho, ma god.
Oh yeah.
Too much, too much, too much.
This is so light.
It weights like nothing.
I have a second one.
I'm just trying to be safe.
At least there's another one for backup.
But also, if both of them work,
then I'll take the bigger one
and my brother will take the smaller one.
I have my two cakies.
The oven's already been preheated,
so I'm just gonna go ahead and pop them in there now.
Right here.
And we'll check on it later.
The cakes are in the oven.
Now we move on to the cream part, the star of the dish.
So I can't say for sure that I know exactly what goes in it,
but I am gonna use a heavy cream base
to give it that fluffy, foamy consistency.
The flavor is also important.
So I am going to start
by making an Earl Grey pastry cream that I've done before.
That hopefully can give it that flavor,
that color, that smooth texture.
Over here, I'm just reheating the milk a little bit.
Egg yolks that I have pre-cracked.
Sugar.
Give this a good stir.
Lots of beating and whisking today.
It's getting lighter though.
I'm gonna add the cake flour.
A nice little mixture here.
It's almost like making a cake again.
Viscous.
Oh.
Um, um, um, um.
We're in a bit of trouble.
- [Crew] Yeah.
- Oh, the oven's all ready.
I gotta go get it.
Aww.
Well.
One second.
Oh my god.
Yeah, come see.
We're in a bit of a dilemma,
because I'm still making the pastry cream,
but this needs to be out before it overcooks,
so I need to take the small one out now.
Cups!
I look like I'm crazy, but I promise this is for a reason.
Oh yeah.
You guys.
Wow.
It's like a little moosh-room.
It's a cute little muffin top.
Okay.
This is the tricky part because it's hot
and I need to invert it on top of this.
Oh boy.
Okay.
This is, there's a reason why I'm doing this.
Chiffon cakes need to be, ahh!
Hold on.
(sighs)
This is a two-person job.
But I will do it.
I will make it happen.
(alarm blaring)
Oh my god.
We did it!
(triumphant music)
Oh!
Let me explain what I just did there.
I didn't have enough time to explain it.
But the reason we need to invert it immediately
is because if we don't do that,
the chiffon cake will kind of sink back down
and you won't get that kind of volume that you want.
My mom told me to do this, and it works, so.
I mean, we failed a couple of times.
It's definitely a little bit more squished than it should be
but it's out, and now we just need to let it cool.
We're just gonna pour the rest of this in now.
Now that this has been combined,
this is going back on the stove top.
Then I get the second cake out.
Wow.
Oh, it smells so good.
Oh my god.
Did I get it?
All right.
Second one is now out and inverted.
Hoo!
All right.
They look really good.
I'm really nervous.
(tone rings)
I hope that means we're on the right track.
Now we heat this up.
We're just gonna cook this down
until it becomes like a paste.
This will become our Earl Grey concentrate
that we'll later whip into the whipping cream
and make it super tasty.
Don't they look so pretty?
That volume on it.
That means the air really went through.
That's really exciting.
Now the problem really is more just to
make sure it comes out that way.
It's been many, many minutes.
I've been just stirring and cooking this on low heat.
My patience has paid off.
Let me show you guys.
Maybe not that visual, but it's so goopy.
This is what we're looking for,
a beautiful sort of thick Earl Grey paste.
Let it cool.
I'm gonna give this a little taste.
(funky music)
Boy, that's so good.
It's like really creamy,
and the Earl Grey flavor really comes through.
Now we're gonna set this aside and move on to the next step,
which is to cook the, oh, this is warm, to cook the boba.
We're moving along.
We are back.
Let's talk boba.
This time, I decided to make my own boba.
And you can see that they're a little less dark in color.
I just figured,
since I'm making everything else from scratch,
my boba should be from scratch too.
But we'll save the process of doing that for another video.
This are my little babies.
These ones will take a little longer to cook.
Let it cook like this for 15 minutes.
We're gonna rest it for 30 minutes.
Very soft and gooey now.
I'm just going to scoop some brown sugar.
This is what gives it that brown sugar,
syrupy, molasses flavor.
Just sweetening the boba a little bit.
This sugar water will cook down slowly into a sugar syrup
that will really complement our Earl Grey cream.
So while that's cooking off to the side,
I think it's time to take the cakes out of the molds.
Wish me luck.
This is the make-or-break moment.
I am super nervous, even though it came out beautiful.
Oh, it's so cool.
It looks very different from when I first pulled it out.
Um.
I'm just going to slowly cut the sides.
And it's okay.
The top didn't fall off.
Ready?
Okay, it's a little messy, but...
So there's a huge hole here.
This is not part of the plan.
It's okay.
Nothing a little bit of trimming won't fix.
It is very, very fluffy, so that's good.
And it's super soft.
Flavor-wise, it's super good.
It just doesn't get any points for looks.
It's like a little volcano right now,
which is I guess on-brand, right?
Hopefully this one looks better than the other one.
Wait.
I don't know what happened.
(sighs)
What to do?
Do I have to do it all over again?
Uh.
This is not the cake I was supposed to,
oh, it's a card full.
Everything's falling apart.
Aah!
I kind of don't want to show this to camera.
What did I do wrong?
Can it even stand on itself?
Absolutely not.
I was really hoping this would work.
I think I need to redo everything again.
(sighs)
Okay, I'm gonna call my mom.
'Cause moms know best.
I already sent her a picture.
She's gonna be so disappointed.
Okay.
(speaking foreign language)
Okay, then I will try again.
- [Mother] All right.
- Okay, bye.
- [Mother] Bye.
- Got a few tips.
Gonna do this all over again.
Next time you see me, I will have a cake.
I will make my mom proud.
All right.
Let's cut.
We have a cake.
I have already trimmed it,
'cause you've already seen a really ugly cake.
We are finally able to move on to our cream.
This is our beautiful pastry cream,
which has now cooled.
I say "beautiful,"
but it is not the most beautiful looking thing.
And that's okay.
You don't always have to be beautiful to be tasty.
I've got me some whipping cream and sugar.
I'm just gonna whip that right up.
This is honestly the part where we
do not have a recipe at all.
At this point, I am just trying to recreate that lava cream
based on what I know of how whipped cream works.
This whipping cream has to be really, really, really soft.
That's the only way it will fall.
Hopefully we get this on the first try.
Based on what we've seen with the cake,
that is not looking too good, but one can dream.
I am going to test it
on the cake pan that we used earlier, just to be safe.
Wrap right around it like so.
This is what we have.
Super liquidy, which is exactly what we want.
Let's mix this in first.
Just combining the two to flavor this cream.
I want it to be at a consistency
where I can pour it right on.
It needs to look like lava.
It needs to run like lava.
Add more liquid.
We're getting there.
Pourable?
Nice.
Attempt number one.
I feel like it's too thick.
Nope!
A little more cream, maybe?
There we go.
That's what I'm talking about.
Is there enough for it to fall over?
This is a really creamy cake.
Moment of truth.
Will it pour?
I think it will pour.
(jazzy music)
Yo!
Do you see that?
You see that?
That worked, right?
Yay.
This is so exciting.
Let's make the cake then.
Cake building time.
I'm excited.
The cream has worked.
Let's get started.
Shouldn't get too excited.
See, this is what happens when I get too excited.
I'm really nervous.
This is it.
I don't have another cake.
If I don't do it, I'm done.
If I fail this, it's not just failing the internet.
My brother will never let this go.
That's a good consistency.
Okay, let's go.
I think that's a good amount of cream.
Now I'm gonna put the boba in.
Oh, it's not staying on top.
It's because it's too hot right now.
If we blow some air on it, it'll be fine, right?
Right?
This is what it's come down to.
I'm so worried.
Told myself I only had one shot, and here I am.
This is the boba cake.
Ta-da!
It looks pretty legit, right?
Smells amazing.
I am going to call Skyler over,
and then we're gonna do the final reveal together.
Please work.
Come on in.
What do you think?
This is like the most unimpressed face ever.
There's no like, "Wow! Wow!"
- Wow, that looks so good.
Yeah, this looks like the real thing
- Really? - Yeah.
- You're not just saying that?
- No, really. - I'm so surprised.
You want to do the pull?
- Definitely.
- Three, two, one, go.
Yo! - Oh my god.
(clapping)
(ethereal music)
- That was good!
- Oh yeah.
- I was so nervous, but it came right over, right?
Like in the videos?
Can you what?
- Can we just eat it now?
- Can I bask in my glory for like two seconds?
My god.
High five myself.
Thank you.
I'm so happy.
I got a knife.
No, I got a fork.
No, I got a fork and a knife.
So soft.
- I want more boba, please.
- That's a good slice.
- Ho ho, that's good.
(Inga laughs)
- And you're going in for more bites.
I'm so impressed by myself right now.
Oh my god.
- Good.
I would imagine this is exactly how it tastes.
Great job.
- Success.
We did it.
Well, I did it.
- You did it. - Ha ha!
- A solid eight point--
- Why is it an eight?
- Seven, nine out of 10.
'Cause you copied Mom's recipe.
You gotta be a little bit more original sometimes, you know?
- I'm glad you finally got to try this.
I know you've been wanting to try this for a long time.
If any of you out there have a viral cake that you know of
from your country, send it to me.
Leave a comment below.
Send me a DM.
Let's try to make it happen.
I want to make it happen.
- And make it harder, please.
It's okay, you got it.
Heh heh.
- Ha ha ha ha!
Did you guys hear that?
All right, see you next time.
Bye, bye! - Bye!
(mid-tempo string music)