Pao de Queijo (Chebe Bread)

Cheese Biscuits for Thanksgiving?  Everyone will love them, gf and non alike.  Delicious alternative to yeast rolls -- quick and easy, mixes in five minutes and bakes in ten minutes and it's multicultural!



Terina last posted this on 12-12-12 and then again on 10-11-13. 

I just made them with my gal pal Lidia and they are delicious. So here is a new photo:

Quick recipe:

1 1/4 cup tapioca starch (available cheap at Asian stores or Honeyville Grain)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup cheese 

(mozzarella, asiago, cheddar, I've used them all. Or leave it out) 

1 teaspoon seasoning (I've used taco, italian, dill)

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of butter/oil

2 eggs

Stir it up and drop/roll into balls.  Bake at 425 for 10 minutes only.

DO NOT OVERBAKE--If these aren't to die for, it's due to overbaking.

Makes about a dozen.

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This recipe had it's beginnings in 2008 - It's also called Chebe Bread or Pao de Quejo and sells for big bucks in the grocery stores.  Really a delicious g-f alternative.  

I trust GF Gobsmacked because her oreos are directly from a heavenly planet, so I tried her recipe for Brazilian cheese bread (chebe) and like she indicated, I found it happiness personified--in only 15 minutes and using only one flour.

The whole story follows so skip to the end if you must:

"ancient file photograph--2010"

When you are on a ski vacation, there is not much time for making or baking food of any kind, so the original plan was to order pizza from Park City Pizza whose owners, Jeff and Nikki Keye have worked to develop gluten-free recipes as good as the original. Jeff was diagnosed with CD six years ago, and is dedicated to preventing cross-contamination.

But I'm a 30 year skiier, who really hates skiing (see blog excerpt below).

"Skiing has its own unique verbiage to disguise its inherent wretchedness. The ski term off-piste means to glide rapturously in deep powder off trail, through snow-covered trees. When I ski off-piste, it happens accidentally, flailing frantically out of control, dodging and ducking trees, ditching skis and poles, and any sharp object that could imperil my ungainly finish.

Most of the time, I ski “piste-off,” fighting the ski position, half bent over, leaning precariously forward, sliding and slipping while all the way screaming, and wildly zipping past signs that say slow."

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Aug., 2012 update
The new SIL (son in law) tried this recipe and loved it, but recommended that when it says tapioca that one uses flour, not the tapioca that most American's are familiar with, the one that makes it taste like graveled buns.)

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Long story short, I convinced the husband that I would be so much happier staying in at the homey chalet, keeping the fires burning... and baking.

I recipe experimented over the holiday weekend. First I viewed a standard non-gf recipe at allrecipes, but their Brazilian cheese bread was more a pate choux recipe, like the cheese gougeres (a savory cream puff) that I already make. Delicious, but not new.

So I dug out and snowshoed (obvious hyperbole) to the library and searched the "tried and true" gluten-free community blogs and found this one--another keeper from GF Gobsmacked ( I feel I know her well enough to abbreviate.)

I had to modify (no chives fresh or dried in the country store) and I added an extra egg when I could not get the crumble to stick together in balls. It's a keeper, delicious and cultural--and freezable in balls prior to baking. See this article from the S.L. Tribune if you missed it last week.