Brazilian Cheese Bread

If you have ever eaten at a Fogo De Chao, you know that the best part of the meal is not the swords of meat they constantly carve onto your plate (unless you are a man, then the meat is, of course, the best part). It's the bread. I took my husband there for his birthday at his request, and I bet you I ate about 17 of the mystery chewy, cheesy, muffin-y things. I just kept exclaiming, "I LOVE this bread!" It's possible I also exclaimed that about the caipirinha I was drinking. Holy moly, get yourself to a Brazilian restaurant fast for that little glass of heaven. Anyway, I never asked the waitress about the bread or anything, just gorged myself full of it and went on my merry way. Fast forward to yesterday when Mel posted a recipe for "Pao de Queijo" aka Brazilian Cheese Bread. The mystery is over, friends. These mini versions of those rolls I had at Fogo came out of my oven last night and were just as heavenly as I remembered. They are as easy as making muffins from a box and are so so so good. Totally chewy and unique, and since you have to eat them warm, we did eat all 24 of them at our house last night. Yup.

Easy Brazilian Cheese Bread, or "Cheesy Poofs" as my husband called them
-from melskitchencafe.com

• -1 large egg
• -1/4 cup canola or vegetable or olive oil
• -2/3 cup milk
• -1 1/2 cups tapioca flour (fluff the flour before measuring)*
• -3/4 teaspoon salt
• -1/2 cup packed parmesan cheese**

*don't panic, you can find tapioca flour in the gluten free section of your store. I got mine at Hy-Vee, and it's the Bob's Red Mill Brand.

**It's important you grate the cheese off the block yourself. Don't shake it out of a jar or buy it pre-shredded. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease a mini muffin tin (you will get 24 muffins). In a blender or food processor, combine the egg, oil, milk, flour, and salt. Process until the mixture is smooth, scraping down the sides of the blender once or twice. Add the cheese and process for just a short bit, 5-10 seconds or a few short pulses, until the cheese is in small bits all throughout the batter. Give the batter a good stir to get any solids off the bottom and pour the mixture into the prepared muffin tin filling the cups nearly to the top. Bake the cheesy poofs until very lightly golden brown, 15-20 minutes max. They don't get very dark on top.  Don't let them get too brown on the bottom or they will be too crusty and not as chewy. Remove them from the oven and let them cool for just a minute or two. Eat them warm, and don't panic if they fall a bit in the middle.  

Are these cute, or what??

Precious little darlings

Super chewy cheesiness inside