Brazilian cheese bread

I went to a Brazilian restaurant many years ago and one of the most memorable items, besides the meat of course, was their cheese bread. Brazilian cheese bread also known as Pao de Queijo, has a nice exterior with a chewy inside. Only consisting of 6 ingredients, these breads can be made in only 20 minutes!

Brazilian Cheese Breas (Pao de Queijo)

Recipe from simplyrecipes.com

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Yield: 16 mini breads or 8 large

Ingredients

1 egg at room temperature

1/3 cup oliveoil

2/3 cup milk

scant 1 1/2 cups tapioca flour

1/2 cup queso fresco

1 tsp salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a mini-muffin tin for smaller sized breads or a regular muffin tin.
2. Combine all of the ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth. Pour into the muffin tins until 2/3 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the breads have puffed up and are a light golden brown. remove from oven and let cool on wire rack. Serve warm. 

Nutritional Analysis: 

per serving (total serving 16): 88.5 calories, 4.9g fat (1g saturated, 0.5g polyunsaturated, 3.2g monounsaturated), 10.4g carbohydrates, 0g fiber, 1.2g protein

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

Tapioca flour can be hard to find; I was only able to find it at an Asian market. I wanted to see if you could substitute the flour for these breads so I made one batch with rice flour and the other with tapioca flour.

See the difference between the batters! The one with rice flour on the left is much thicker and grainier as opposed to the one with the tapioca flour on the right, which is practically a liquid.

The breads made with tapioca flour rose beautifully! They puffed up quite high while the ones with rice flour did not rise at all.

Sadly, the breads do not stay risen for long. They do start to deflate after a couple minutes.

The one on the left with tapioca flour is light and airy with a nice chew factor, while the one on the right with rice flour was dense and just not tasty at all.

The lesson? Do not use a substitute flour! You must use tapioca flour! The Brazilian breads are wonderful and tasted exactly like the ones from the restaurant! Definitely a keeper!