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Writer's pictureFrancesca Loomis

Pão de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese Bread)

Updated: Sep 26, 2020

Pão de queijo, or Brazilian cheese bread, brought back so many memories of my trip to the Brazilian Amazon in 2017. I would eat at least 10 of these every morning, I could not stay away from them. My friend and co-worker told me that they were very easy to make at home but I never got the motivation to try and make them, until now.

The great thing about pão de queijo is that they require tapioca flour (which is gluten-free!!) instead of all-purpose, and I had no issue finding tapioca flour and the rest of the ingredients were easy to find. I chose the recipe by King Arthur Flour because they looked the most similar to the ones I had in Brazil, and they tasted exactly like the ones I had. However, traditional recipes use minas or meia-cura cheese, which are similar in flavor to Parmesan or mozzarella.


A stand mixer is recommended, but you can mix by hand, it will just be difficult.

Servings: about 40


Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp salt

2 cups or more tapioca flour or tapioca starch

1 garlic clove, minced

3/4 cup grated Parmesan, Romano or Asiago cheese (I used a mix of all 3)

2 eggs, lightly beaten


Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.


Combine butter, water, milk and salt in a small saucepan until butter has melted. Meanwhile, add your flour to a stand mixer. Pour the boiling mixture over the flour and beat until combined on high speed until it is smooth and elastic-looking (30 seconds or so). Beat in garlic and cheese until well combined. Make sure your dough is not scalding hot by sticking your finger into it to test (you don't want the eggs to cook). If it's hot but not burning, turn your mixture on and gradually add your eggs until well combined and smooth.


If your batter is the consistency of cake or pancake batter, you will need to add more tapioca flour. Start with 1/4 cup then add more as needed. The consistency should be similar to a cream puff and thick enough to hold its shape when scooped onto a baking sheet. Mine did spread into a puddle but I was too far along so decided to bake them and they turned out great. I added more flour to the next batch but also realized that the longer it sat on the counter, the more it "hardened".


Scoop a golf-sized ball of batter onto your baking sheet, they may settle slightly. Bake for about 20-22 minutes until they begin to brown a bit. Best served hot.


You can store leftovers in a ziplock bag either at room temperature or in the freezer. Rewarm either in the oven, microwave, or toaster oven. Other recipes have suggested freezing un-cooking dough balls, but I leave that up to you to try.


Recipe from King Arthur Flour.


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