Pão de Queijo
Brazilian cheese breads made from tapioca starch scalded with hot milk and oil, giving a crisp shell and a chewy, hollow, almost stretchy interior. Naturally gluten free, and completely unlike any wheat bread.
Photograph credit: Pão de Queijo - cheese bread by Jonathan Wilkins · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Scalding the tapioca starch with boiling milk and oil gelatinises it, which is what creates the elastic, stretchy structure — tapioca has no gluten, so this pre-cooked starch network is doing all the structural work. The steam it traps in the oven puffs the rolls and leaves them hollow.
Quick Answers
How long does Pão de Queijo take to make?
15 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking, plus 45 minutes of cooling and chilling, so allow 1 hour 25 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 16.
How to Make Pão de Queijo
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Put the tapioca starch in a large heatproof bowl.
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Bring the milk, oil and salt to a full rolling boil in a saucepan.
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Pour the boiling liquid over the starch all at once and stir hard with a wooden spoon. It will look lumpy, seized and alarming. This is correct.
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Leave for 15 minutes to cool to lukewarm.
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Beat in the eggs a little at a time — a stand mixer with the paddle makes this much easier — until the mixture becomes smooth and elastic.
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Beat in both cheeses until fully incorporated. The dough will be sticky and stretchy.
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Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes to firm it enough to handle.
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Heat the oven to 190°C / 375°F. With oiled hands, roll the dough into 30 balls the size of a walnut and space them well apart on lined trays.
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Bake 20 to 25 minutes until puffed, golden and hollow-sounding. Do not open the oven in the first 15 minutes.
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Eat warm, when the contrast between crisp shell and chewy centre is at its best.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Worth Getting Right
- The lumpy stage after scalding is normal. Keep going; the eggs bring it together.
- Tapioca starch only. Cornflour or potato starch will not produce the same structure.
- Rolled unbaked balls freeze perfectly and bake from frozen with 4 extra minutes.
Serve It With
Brazilian coffee, black and strong · As a side to feijoada · A cold beer
Keeping and Reheating
Best within an hour of baking. Freeze raw balls for 3 months. Baked ones keep 2 days and refresh at 180°C / 350°F for 5 minutes.
Pão de Queijo Nutrition
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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