Pão de Queijo (or Brazilian Cheese Bread) is my new favorite thing. These perfect little puffs of chewy cheese are not only quick and easy to make, but they are seriously addictive. Truthfully, that may not be a problem, because once you’ve finished off the entire batch before they’ve even cooled completely, you’ve still got time to make and eat a second batch. Bonus: they are gluten-free, so, like… that makes them healthy, right?
Let’s focus on ingredients here for a second. When I first told my husband I’d picked up some tapioca flour for a recipe, he turned up his nose. The word tapioca brings back all the suppressed memories of gluey desserts during school lunches. Don’t let that abomination deter you from experimenting with this versatile product, particularly in non-pudding applications! Tapioca flour (or tapioca starch) is made from the cassava root, and is naturally gluten-free. It has an extremely mild flavor and is great as a substitute for cornstarch. In fact, it has a very similar texture. I’ve heard it can do an even better job of thickening watery fruit in pies, which I’ll be sure to try out for you sometime!
While I try my best to strive for authenticity when I borrow a recipe from another culture, there are always issues with sourcing certain ingredients. I did a bit of reading before attempting this recipe. I chose to use mozzarella and parmesan cheeses for this, which was the consensus among recipes as the best substitute in taste and texture for the meia cura cheese that is traditionally used in the Brazilian state where this recipe originated. Some recipes said to look for sour tapioca flour, but others (including one by a Brazilian baker) said that the difference isn’t big enough to warrant a special delivery when you can find the regular version in Whole Foods.
Have I bored you to tears with my food history lecture yet? OK–let’s get to the cooking!
In the first step, you heat the milk, oil, and salt on the stove top, then stir the tapioca flour. Ready for your Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-did moment? Use a wooden spoon or a spatula instead of a whisk. This thickens VERY quickly, so while a whisk may seem like a good tool to stir the milk and oil at the beginning, you realize as soon as the tapioca goes in that your whisk becomes totally ineffective. Also, the addition of the tapioca turns into what looks like a seized up baking disaster. I promise that this gluey, goopy, globby mass is exactly what you are looking for at this stage. You need to have some trust.
A good bit of beating in your mixer and the addition of the cheese and egg (and then some more beating) yield a smooth, albeit very sticky dough.
To get the dough into relatively equal portions, I used a medium cookie scoop. To get the extremely sticky dough to release easily, I dipped the scoop in water before every dip. Worked like a charm! Word to the wise, make sure you’re spacing them evenly right from the beginning. It’s near impossible to move them once you plop them on the parchment. Don’t touch them with your fingers, either, unless you dip them in water first. I did that at the end to smooth away a couple little tails before putting them into the oven, but that’s not a necessary step.
Just 25 minutes later, the most delicious, warm, cheesy puffs of magic emerged from the oven and changed my life forever. They were golden and pillowy with just the slightest hint of crust. You could see the dappling of the browned cheese where the rising dough caused tiny rifts in the otherwise smooth surface. Biting into one caused me to simultaneously close my eyes as they rolled towards the heavens in thanks to the gods of baking. Am I being dramatic? Nope. They were just that good. It took ALL the willpower I possessed not to eat so many that I didn’t have any left to photograph.
Make these! You won’t be disappointed that you had to buy special flour for it. Clearly, they are best (see also: perfection) right out of the oven, but they are pretty good the next day, too! They’d probably make great mini sandwiches with some ham in between, but that’s pure speculation since there were no leftovers. I’m just thinking about that leftover Easter ham…
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Pão De Queijo
Yummy gluten-free puffs filled with gooey cheese! Recipe compliments of Life Made Simple Bakes!
Ingredients
- 1 cup Whole Milk
- 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
- 1 1/4 tsp Salt
- 2 cup Tapioca Flour
- 1 cup shredded Mozzarella
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
- 2 Eggs, room temperature
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 350F. Line a large baking pan with parchment
- Step 2 Heat milk, oil, and salt over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until large bubbles form. Remove from heat and working quickly, stir in the tapioca flour. The resulting dough will be very gummy and gelatinous. (Don’t worry–this is actually right!)
- Step 3 Transfer the dough to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Turn mixer on low and gradually increase to medium. Beat until smooth
- Step 4 Add grated cheeses and beat until incorporated. Beat in eggs one at a time. Continue beating on medium for 2-3 minutes until the dough is smooth and stretchy
- Step 5 Using an ice cream scoop, create portions by dipping scoop in water before dipping in batter. Release onto the prepared baking sheet
- Step 6 Bake for 25-30 minutes or until tops are lightly golden and the outsides are crisp. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving
- Step 7 Try not to eat every single one!
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