Watching a Red Lobster commercial and seeing those cheddar bay biscuits this weekend triggered a need for some cheesy bread. Then Jay brought up those amazing cheese puffs we’ve eaten at Brazilian steakhouses. We looked up a few recipes and it seemed surprisingly easy to make. Jay liked one recipe and I liked another one, so we had a bake off. Here is the winning recipe, which was adapted from Epicurious. It’s the one I chose of course! Hehe.

Pao de Quejio (Brazilian Cheese Puffs)
makes about 24 puffs

Ingredients

• 2 cups tapioca flour*
• 1 cup milk (reduced fat or whole)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• 3/4 cup Queso Fresco, grated
• 2 eggs

* Tapioca Flour can be found at specialty markets such as Whole Foods (where we got ours, Bob’s Red Mill brand) or Asian markets and is also called manioc starch or tapioca starch.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. In the meantime bring the milk, salt, and butter to a boil in a sauce pan while constantly stirring mixture.
3. Once boiling remove the mixture of milk, salt and butter from heat.
4. Slowly add tapioca flour, stirring constantly until thoroughly mixed
5. Add the cheese and eggs to mixture
6. Mix until smooth (dough will be gummy)
7. Use a mini muffin pan, and fill each cup all the way up
8. Bake until golden brown, usually about 20 minutes

Eat while hot. Cooked puffs can be stored, in the fridge as long as it’s kept covered and then warmed up on a low setting in a toaster oven. You can also save any unused dough for about 2 days in the fridge. Plus, these little babies are naturally gluten free!

These were so delicious! The little puffs tasted exactly like they did when we ate them at a restaurant. They are slightly crusty on the outside, and have a soft warm center. I could eat these babies all day. Unfortunately, Jay’s puffs (the one in the picture above on the left), were a little dry. He attributes my win to the butter content of course.