Pão de queijo recipe (brazilian cheese bread)

Brazilian cheese bread is a super forgiving recipe: as long as you use tapioca flour and you don't underbake it, you can change the ingredients to your hearts content.

Lazy recipe

• about 900g of tapioca flour/starch (if you have the option get "polvilho azedo", i.e. fermented tapioca starch, since it hydrates better). You can buy this at any Brazilian market
• 2 cups of milk (hydration. Can be substituted by water)
• half a cup of oil (affects the texture. can be substituted by eggs, or anything)
• 2 to 4 eggs (binding. Can be substituted by mashed cassava, mashed potatoes, etc)
• 2 big handfuls of cheese (it is only for flavor, so amount is not that important. Can be substituted by anything)
• Some salt for flavor. Around 1 tablespoon is reasonable (depends on the cheese)

Mix everything but the cheese and the tapioca flour.

Add tapioca flour until you can roll the dough into balls.

Add the cheese (it doesn't change the texture, so it is easier to add it last, to better tell the texture of the dough).

Roll into balls (they can be tiny, or medium sized). Freeze them for later use, or bake them.

Bake them until the surface has hardened (it gets a bit brownish), between 350 and 375F. Small ones take 20 minutes, very large ones can take up to 40 minutes.

If baking a frozen one, add 2 minutes to the time that it took to bake the unfrozen one.

Slightly better recipe

(all substitutions above are still valid)

• 700g of tapioca starch / polvilho azedo
• 2 cups of milk
• half a cup of oil
• ~ some salt (1 tablespoon of salt)
• 2 big handfuls of cheese
• 4 eggs

Mix milk, oil and salt and bring it to a boil. Mix 600g of the tapioca, to really hydrate the flower. It will absorb all the milk and will have a nice consistency. Mix cheese. Wait for it to cooldown a bit. Mix the eggs. Roll into balls and freeze or bake between 350 and 375F, until the surface has hardened.

If you are making a vegan recipe, I really recommend mixing the tapioca starch onto boiling water, since you won't be using eggs as a binding agent.