Pao de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese Rolls)

This morning, I received an email from my friend. She asked whether my mom can make Pao de Queijo - famous Brazilian cheese rolls. Her daughter is going to give a presentation about Brazil in her class next week and she need to bring something related to Brazil which is a traditional Brazilian food.

My friend even provided the "Pao de Queijo" recipe from "about.com" site as below:

Ingredients:
* 2 cups whole milk
* 8 tablespoons butter, melted
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 4 1/4 cups tapioca (cassava) flour
* 4 eggs
* 2 cups grated farmer's cheese, or any firm, fresh cows milk cheese
* 1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese (optional)
* salt to taste

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix milk, salt, vegetable oil and butter in a pot, and bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, remove from heat.
3. Stir tapioca flour into the milk and butter mixture.
4. Stir in the eggs and the cheese, and mix well.
5. Let mixture cool for 15-30 minutes, so that it will be easier to handle.
6. With floured (tapioca flour) hands, shape the dough into golf ball size balls (about 50 gram portions) and place them on a baking sheet.
7. Bake rolls for 20 to 25 minutes, until they are puffed up and are golden. They will rise slowly and puff up mostly in the last 5 or 10 minutes.
8. Serve warm.

Makes about 15 rolls


Mom and I decided that we'd give a try first today. Well, this is the result :)

They supposedly should puffed up but I'm not sure why these rolls didn't.

Anyway, besides of the nice texture - crusty on the outside but chewy and gooey on the inside, it tasted quite interesting for me ;)


Updated: 6 March 2010

Yay!!! I finally made a much better Pao de Queijo. What a big difference, hehehe...
Thank you to Everything4sweets for sharing her nice recipe :)


Ingredients:
150 gr tapioca flour
90 gr milk
35 gr melted butter or oil
50 gr parmesan cheese
1 egg
2 gr salt

Directions:
the same as the above recipe.