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.

Buckwheat Peanut Butter Bars

Last posted 2-23-11  Still Chewy and Delicious.

Old recipe, new flour. GF Peanut Butter Brownies, Delicious, gluten-free and a very close relative of rhubarb--yup made with buckwheat!

Okay, the Grainiac in me is again excited about Buckwheat! Why are we always so trepidatious...
[A side conversation about words:  "Trepidatious. It's not a word?" --me. "No Mom, it's not, you are experiencing trepidation"--Dia, the G-F English- major-headed-for-Hong-Kong daughter. ]  Hey, I'm inventing new words and new recipes, so the courage does tend to slough off into my fashion sense, my hair color, and consequently, my blogging. But the daughter says no, this time it won't work--I can't invent new words.

Okay, okay!!!!! Anyway,

Why are we cautious about using new flours? Most of the store bought (pre-fab) gluten-free food is pretty bad, so do we really expect our creations to taste worse???

Yet still, I have to be low on other flours before I am encouraged to switch to a new grain and that's what happened, so I'm exploring buckwheat.

This recipe (the tried and true stalwart dessert of the pinewood derby) again turned out delicious and I substituted the flour straight across--cup for cup with buckwheat!

I halved the recipe and it still made two pans.

½ cup peanut butter

½ cup butter (margarine)

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Sift together MIX
1 cup of a GF flour (in this case, buckwheat)
½ tsp soda
½ tsp salt

½ tsp xanthum gum (guar)

Then add

1 cup GF oatmeal or flaked quinoa and

1/4 cup milk (casein free milks like almond or coconut substitute fine)

Bake in a 9x13 inch cake pan. 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes, just until the center sets.

While hot, spread with peanut butter. Wait to cool and layer on chocolate frosting.

This time I put the batter into a 9x 13, and an 8x8 and baked them for 25 and 15 minutes, respectively, until it smelled up the kitchen and turned toasty tan on top at 350 degrees. They were as chewy as I like, and there were still persons (who shall remain nameless) that ate three big pieces. Delicious!

GF Gougères

A gougère, in French cuisine, is a baked savory choux pastry made of choux dough. There are many variants: add some sugar and they're cream puffs, add some cheese and they're ...um, cheese puffs.

In GF cuisine, it's an impossibly easy single flour win that's gonna ruin your calorie count for the next fifteen years. STILL DO IT.  I made them plain and ate them filled with tuna while standing over the pan. I had to hide them from myself to keep some for hubby and some for a friend! 

So simple it's magnifique: 

Melt together 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 cup water
1 tsp salt in a pot.
When it's boiling, turn off the heat and add one cup rice flour all at once.
Stir it together with a big wooden spoon (or something else strong), then add one egg at a time, stirring between eggs, until the batter is doughy but not runny (usually about three eggs). 
Plop onto a cookie sheet (metal, not glass) and cook them in a hot, hot oven (425*) for 20 minutes. Turn the oven down to 350* and cook for 5 more minutes.

Time: 30 minutes.
Makes: not enough.

Gluten free Gougeres

Light, hollow, scrumptious g-f pastry: either sweet or savory.

Here are the step-by-step photos. 

Grind the grain?  Or buy preground, but grinding your own is CHEAPER!


Grate the cheese.  Not cheap is this cheese, but it is delicious and one pound lasts  forever in the fridge and really goes far.   It's worth the budget investment for the flavor.

 

Melt 1 cup of water or milk, with a stick or 1/2 cup butter

 Heat in a saucepan until it boils.

add 1 cup rice flour all at once

Stir on the heat until it makes a ball

then get that thing off the heat or out of the saucepan or when you add the eggs they'll start frying! Oops. 

 Beat in the eggs, one at a time (just THREE might do it if they are overlarge like mine.) 

Only add the cup of asiago cheese if you want to fill these with chicken salad or another savory filling. For cream puffs, add 2 T sugar and nix the cheese! 

My dough ended up a little TOO liquidy

 (I should've stopped at three eggs--the dough should still stand up a little)

So Why not try baking it in a muffin tin?second Oops, my left front broiler was on... Anyway, bake at 400* for 17 minutes

then turn off the oven and let the things sit for about 8 more minutes in the hot oven. 

serve with chicken salad

 

 

Safari Sampling

I'm helping another friend negotiate the jungle that is Gluten-Free--her mom is self-diagnosed celiac, (20 years sick, pernicious anemia, near death when she self-diagnosed at 70.)

This sweet girl has a gymnast daughter with weird rashes and a son who has recently developed ticks like tourettes--(both children are seronegative--but respond well to the diet.) Don'tcha love this disease?

So once again, I'm reviewing my fastest, least complicated recipes in the file--and unfortunately I've slept and forgotten. I love reinventing the egg, and I'm getting better at writing this stuff down, so here goes.

This month, the easy recipe winner had to be buckwheat pancakes. The flour is available at the regular grocery store and the recipe I found this week is delicious, fast and easy. Buckwheat is the easiest flour substitute for cookies and with a tsp. of xanthan, cookies are again fast and easy.

Muffins are not the easiest recipe due to the number of diversified flours, but as a mix, my meticulous muffins are very successful! So, I'll make a batch and drop them off with a mix (add wet ingredients, how easy is that?)

Pizza mixes are easy fast and the crusts are available wherever good GF food is sold.

And best of all, gobsmacked's oreos. I love that I can make these into a mix, that they can add 1 egg and 1 stick butter and bake oreos. These make gluten-free worth it.

GF Buckwheat Pancakes

Last night, while conversing with friends, I was reminded of an lil' 'ol hole in the wall up Ogden canyon in Utah. It is renowned for it's delicious old fashioned buckwheat pancakes that were so big and hearty that you could only ever eat one.

Click, click, click, and that's all it takes for all the pieces to fall together and convince me to mix up some old fashioned buckwheat pancakes. It also helped that gluten-free-works send me an email this week with a recipe.

I find that these are delicious and simple with eggs, oil, milk and only one flour. This recipe made more than the three Darcey's could eat at one sitting. Oh, if only college guy were here.

GF Snickerdoodles

I have tried gf snickerdoodle recipes before and have never been satisfied. Today I tried this one from Gluten Free Homemaker and liked it the best so far.

I mixed it as the recipe recommended, but had to add another full cup of flour to prevent it running over the pan in thin trails. I added an extra half cup of brown rice flour and a half cup of my eight flour mix, just to give it some nutrients.

I baked it shy of ten minutes to keep the cookies from being too burned and crispy. I do like a chewy snicker.

http://www.glutenfreehomemaker.com/2010/01/gluten-free-snickerdoodles-perfect.html

Good luck with your own recipe testing.

GF Buckwheat Cookies

GF Delicious buckwheat cookies. What does that cookie title mean to you? Hearty, grainy, perhaps dark and bulky? Not these cookies!!!

(I do have a photo, but I'm heading to school -- back in a jiff.)

The dough looks light and tastes buttery with no foul aftertaste. I made no effort to purchase light buckwheat flour. This flour looks like the standard brand showing up in common supermarkets in the hot cereal aisle and boxed by Hodgson Mill.

More on the psychology of food later, but I made these cookies quickly and modified the recipe in only one way --by adding 1/2 tsp. guar gum. (I GUM everything--just in case the cookie crumbles).

I also added more flour so the cookies would not spread quite so far. (They are now not spreading at all so if you like your cookies flatter, leave it at 1 1/8 cup flour)

YUM!!! http://glutenfreecooking.about.com/od/glutenfreecookierecipes/r/gfchocolatechips.htm