Pao de Queijo {Brazilian Cheesy Bread}

I once read somewhere that the best thing you can do when you are mad at your husband is bake him a cake. Well, my husband doesn't really dig cake, however, being Brazilian, he LOVES pao de queijo. There is a Brazilian Steakhouse here in town called Fogo de Chao. When we were dating, he took me there a couple times. At the restaurant, you are served bottomless bowls of pao de queijo. It quickly became obvious that he loved these little morsels of cheesy goodness.

Once we were married, I made it a personal goal of mine to figure out how to make it for him at home. It took me years to perfect my recipe. I tried all kinds of flours and cheeses and combinations thereof. He eventually told me to give up and that the flour I needed couldn't be found here in the states. Being the hardheaded woman I am, I didn't listen and pursued my quest of the ultimate pao de queijo.

Eventually, I found a combination that worked so well together he told me my cheesy bread is better than that of Fogo. Well, I'm not claiming that by any means, I'm just happy the hubs loves it!!

I've been making it for a couple years now on a near weekly basis. We eat it for breakfast sometimes, or a late afternoon snack, or a movie snack... anytime really. In my opinion, the best way to have it is with coffee- no matter the time of day.

Without further ado.. Jen's Pao de Queijo

One batch makes one tray of mini muffins OR two whoopie trays. This particular time I doubled the recipe. I have quadrupled it before without problem (aside from my blender capacity).

Ingredients for single batch:
1 egg
1 cup white cheddar (I like Cabot's)
1 1/2 cup tapioca starch or tapioca flour
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup oil (I have used vegetable, olive and canola at different times without much variance in the final product)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt

Normally, I combine all the ingredients in my Ninja blender but today.. it broke (sad, sad day). So, I had to use my food processor instead. This is the first time I've ever used a food processor for pao de queijo and it came out just fine.

So.. 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Combine everything in either a blender or food processor and blend until combined

3. Grease pan(s)
4. I put 1 tablespoon of the mixture in the mini muffin pans and about 1 1/2 tablespoons in the whoopie pans
5. Cook the mini muffin pan for about 17 minutes and the whoopie for about 15 minutes

These are what the ones at the restaurant look like. (the muffin tins)

 

 

The whoopie pie pan was something I thought about a few months back when I started adding things like chopped ham and green onions to them. We've tried many meat /veg combinations but always come back to the original recipe.

 

So, there you have it! I hope you enjoy these tasty, cheesy bites of goodness as much as we do!!