Pão de Queijo 2

I got the basis of this recipe from the Instagram stories of a pão de queijo company here in Rio called Nuu. This isn’t a sponsored post – I just think I should give them credit for the recipe, though I converted some quantities to reduce the scale, so if it doesn’t work out for you then I’ll take the blame. And for the record, I bloody love their pdq, so that was a big reason for trying out their recipe.

The results are a little more substantial (even heavier) than my original pão de queijo recipe (here), but with a beautiful crunchy crust and that gooey, cheesy interior that will have you swooning.

I had some doubts about this recipe when I made it for the first time. The ‘dough’ is very liquid, closer to a batter than a dough really. There was no way I was going to be able to shape it into free-standing balls so I had to fill cupcake/muffin tins instead. I thought at the time that I’d screwed something up in my conversions, but the results were spectacular, so I guess not! They rise/expand quite a bit, so make sure you leave enough room in your cupcake tin.

 

Ingredients

• 200ml whole milk
• 100ml water
• 1 generous teaspoon butter
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 240g polvilho doce
• 60g polvilho azedo
• 110ml beaten egg (approx 2 large, or 2.5-ish medium, eggs)
• 300g cheese (aim for a fairly firm cheese with a good acidic bite)

Note: polvilho is often referred to as ‘tapioca flour’ in stores/online. If you can’t find the two different types listed here (the azedo version might be referred to as ‘sour tapioca starch’) then don’t sweat it and just use what you can find. Just make sure that it’s a flour-like powder and not granulated or in pearl form.

 

Steps

• Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F).
• Gently heat the milk, water, butter and salt in a saucepan until almost (but not quite) boiling.
• Transfer the milk mixture to a mixing bowl and add the polvilho/tapioca starch. Stir well.
• Keep stirring for a minute or two. This eliminates most of the lumps and gives the mixture time to cool down a little before the next step.
• Add half the beaten egg to the mixture and continue stirring for a minute or so until it is fully integrated.
• Gradually add some/all of the remaining beaten egg mixture and keep mixing until reasonably smooth. NOTE: You will have to use your judgement on exactly how much egg to add – I find the resulting mixture to be quite sloppy, even after adding the cheese in the next step, but the end result is fantastic, so keep the faith and plough on.
• Add the cheese and mix really well.
• Pour into greased cupcake tins/moulds and bake on the top shelf of your oven until the breads have risen well and just started to turn golden.
• Pop them out of the cupcake tin and cool them on a wire rack or just eat them straight away.

These yummy, gooey, cheesy treats freeze very well and can be reheated from frozen without needing to defrost.