Brazilian Cheese Bread (Pão de Queijo)

I’m digging Brazilian food. The first brazilian dish I ever attempted with much success was Moqueca – brazilian fish stew and I think it’s due another round soon.

Didn’t want Moqueca to be the lonely brazilian in my recipe book, so I introduced a friend this weekend. Brazilian Cheese Bread otherwise known as Pão de Queijo. Funnily enough, ‘bao’ in Chinese means ‘bun / bread’ so Pão must mean the same too right? There must be a connection somewhere somehow between the Chinese and Brazilians. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it!

When I first saw this recipe, I was sold. It’s so simple to prepare yet sounds so divinely scrumptious. Chewy and cheesy…two of my favourite food adjectives.

Similar to the Moqueca recipe which called for coconut milk, this recipe also has a ‘special’ ingredient – tapioca flour. It’s not a commonly used flour, and I cannot remember why I have a bag of it in my pantry. Oh wait a minute, I remember now – I had to use 30g of it for my turnip dumplings a while back. Mmmm….turnip dumplings…

Right, right…back to brazilian cheese bread. Seriously simple stuff.

Brazilian Cheese Bread
adapted from simplyrecipes.com

• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cups (170 grams) tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup (packed, about 66 grams) grated cheese – I used mature cheddar
• 1 teaspoon of salt (or more to taste)

Preheat the oven to 200°C, grease a mini muffin tin (recipe makes about 10-12). Put all the ingredients in a blender, pulse the mixture till smooth. (This mixture keeps in the fridge for up to a week, so you can pre-mix some of this for a quick snack during the week).

Fill the muffin tin, slightly more than two thirds full. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until slightly golden. Serve fresh and warm from the oven.

Puffing up in the oven

Slowly deflating...

The bread puffs up quite a bit in the oven and deflates when cool. As expected, it was chewy, cheesy and yummy. If you like Japanese mochi – you’ll love this. It’s just like a savoury version of a mochi with a nice, thin baked crust. Be warned – it’s very more-ish!

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