Pão de Queijo (Brazillian Cheese Bread)

MAKE THIS RIGHT NOW.

But really… now.

I had these for the first time last week at Fogo de Chão and couldn’t get them out of my head. I was like “… I don’t know what these little cheesy balls of bready Brazillian deliciousness are… but I want them forevertimes.” I literally hounded the manager to tell me what they were called and immediately scoured Google for a recipe while I was still at the table.

It’s serious…

Seriously EASY.

The only thing is, you can’t use regular all-purpose flour for this. You MUST use tapicoa flour. It’s essential for the texture of the bread. You can find it at Whole Foods, sometimes in the “organic” section of your regular grocery store, or online at Amazon. You can also substitute the olive oil in this recipe for melted butter.

The only “exotic” item in this recipe is tapioca flour, and it is essential! Along with olive oil, milk, sea salt, cheese and eggs.

You can use a blender, food processor or good ol’ fashioned elbow grease for this. I used a stick blender. Whatever method you choose, combine all the ingredients and blend until well combined.

Scrape down the sides as necessary. It’s a pretty thin batter.

Fill a mini muffin tin almost to the top with the batter. FYI, the batter will keep in the fridge for about a week, so if you don’t use it all right away just store in an airtight container. If I had to choose a batter to have on hand all the time, this would be it.

Bake @ 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until lightly browned. If you like burnt cheese like I do, it’s tempting to leave them in until they’re super duper brown and burnty cheese lookin’, but don’t. That’s not what these are about. They ain’t ’bout that life!

These are all about texture. Crispy on the outside…

…gooey cheesy deliciousness on the inside. The texture is reminiscent of Japanese mochi.

I ate all of these. Judge me, I don’t care, but I guarantee my tummy is happier than your tummy right NAH.

makes ~24 mini muffin size rolls

Ingredients

1 egg, room temperature
1/3 cup olive oil or butter (melted)
2/3 cup milk
1 1/2 cups tapioca flour
1/2 cup grated cheese (a *generous 1/2 cup. I used Parmesan. Mexican queso fresco also works well)
sea salt to taste (start with 1/4 tsp)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine all ingredients in a blending mechanism of your choice (blender, food processor, hand beaters, stick blender). Blend to combine, scraping down sides as needed.

Grease a mini muffin tin with butter. Fill mini muffin tin almost to the top with batter. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until puffy and just lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack for a few minutes.

But that won’t happen… you’re going to eat them all straight out the oven. And that’s okay.

Notes

You must use tapioca flour for this. Don’t substitute.

Use any kind of grated cheese you like. Feel free to also add in herbs and spices. I’m really excited to experiment with this recipe.

If you didn’t think ahead enough to let your egg sit out to room temperature, just put it in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes.

Leftover batter can be stored in the fridge for up to a week.