For her 11th birthday, Tandy waffled between a small sleepover and a larger group party for weeks. About 2 weeks out she declared she wanted a boba party. I was skeptical on how we would pull it off at first, until I started thinking of it as a Boba Tea Party. We quickly latched on to the idea of a par-tea and plans started taking shape.
The boba party decor is very simplistic. The "Let's Par-tea" balloon banner from Amazon set the stage. I used my Silhouette cutting machine to create the boba cup garland. The Boba Tea plush pillows made cute additions that have now transitioned to Tandy's bed.
I never before considered how many ways you can use boba! We provided 3 flavors of popping boba to top bowls of ice cream, and topped fruit salad cups with tapioca boba pearls. Both versions of boba are delicious, and I highly recommend adding them to fruit for a special treat. We served sliders, pigs in a blanket, and Chex mix for savory sustenance too.
I really debated on the best way to serve the bubble boba tea. There are tons of homemade recipes online, we probably could have called our favorite local boba shop to cater, and World Market sells a canned option. After a comparative taste test of prepacked boba tea for ease and cost savings, we settled on Joyba Bubble Tea. The Joyba Tea comes with cute packaging and an extendable straw attached.
In addition to the popping boba topped ice cream, there had to be cake. Tandy loves to look over my shoulder at a few of her favorite bakers in my Instagram feed. One of those is Sugar and Sparrow, and she happens to have a Sweet & Salty Pretzel Nutella Cake Recipe. Tandy loves those side by side pretzel Nutella snacks, so this was an easy choice. I made a double batch of cake in order to have 4 (6") layers (We have two layers in the freezer for a later use). After stacking the cakes, I trimmed down the sides, so the cake is a bit narrower at the base. The top "lid" of the cake is the original frosting color. I added additional brown coloring to achieve the tea shade for the majority of the cake. The boba pearls are actually licorice drops. Our local tea shop gave us an extra straw to use as the cake topper. While the cake tasted delicious, the tall skinny shape made slicing a bit of a disaster, so be warned.