Pão de Queijo - Brazilian Cheese Bread #BreadBakers

Chewy and cheesy inside with a slightly crunchy outside, Pão de Queijo is a traditional baked snack served in Brazil. They are terribly more-ish. You cannot eat just one!

Everywhere I’ve lived over the past 55 years (13 countries and counting!) I’ve learned how to make favorite dishes and added them to our family repertoire, from spicy curries to homemade falafels. Brazil was not only one of our favorite places to live but it also introduced us to many of our favorite recipes including zesty caipirinha cocktails, black beans and sausage, bolinhos de bacalhau, garlicky collards greens, chocolatey brigadeiros and these delicious pão de queijo or Brazilian cheese breads.

Pão de queijo made an appearance at the local churrascarias (grilled meat restaurants) as well as lanchonetes (snack counters) across Brazil. When folks baked them at home, even in Brazil, they typically used Yoki package mixes, as did we. If you look online, there are places in the US you can order Yoki, but it’s just as easy, honestly, to make them from scratch. If you have to order something online anyway, go for the tapioca starch.

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Pão de Queijo or Brazilian Cheese Bread

Naturally gluten free! I used the Goya brand tapioca starch for these, readily available in many supermarkets for a reasonable cost. Bob’s Red Mill also makes sells it. This recipe is adapted from one on Sonia Portuguese.

Ingredients - makes about 70
1 cup or 240ml water
1 cup or 240ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil, plus more for greasing the pans
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups or 450g tapioca starch
2  large eggs
7 oz or 200g Parmesan cheese, grated finely

Method
Pour the water, milk, oil and salt into a large pot and bring it to the boil.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the tapioca starch.

Mix well with a wooden spoon until all of the tapioca starch is mixed in then set it aside to cool down till just warm.

Preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C and grease two large baking pans with oil.

Beat the eggs and add them in to the warm dough.

Knead well until the eggs are fully incorporated. This is going to stick to your hands. Keep kneading and scrape the dough off with a spatula from time to time.

Add the grated cheese and keep kneading until the dough is smooth.

Scoop out 1 tablespoon pieces of dough and drop them on your prepared pan.

Roll the dough pieces into small balls, dampening your hands with water to stop the dough from sticking to you, dropping the balls back onto the baking pan. Wet your hands again as necessary during the rolling.

Bake the pão de queijo in your preheated oven for about 20-22 minutes or until golden brown and speckled in places.

Ideally, serve them warm. (But we'll also eat them the next day at room temperature.) Enjoy!

Check out that spongy interior! These guys are so chewy and cheesy. 

This month my Bread Bakers are all sharing gluten free recipes and I am taking my turn as host. Check out all of their great recipes!

• Coconut Flour Pancakes from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Gluten Free Cheddar Garlic Biscuits from What Smells So Good?
• Gluten-Free Petite Vanilla Bean Scones from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Idli – Steamed Sourdough Rice and Lentil Buns from Sneha's Recipe
• Japanese Rice Crackers from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Low Carb Garlic Rosemary Bread from Gayathri's Cook Spot
• Pan de Yuca from Mayuri’s Jikoni
• Pão de Queijo - Brazilian Cheese Bread from Food Lust People Love
• Quinoa Chia Multiseed Bread (Vegan ~ Gluten Free ~ Dairy Free) from CookWithRenu
• Spicy Besan and Fenugreek Crackers (GF and Vegan) from Sizzling Tastebuds

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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Instant Pot Carrot Snack Cake #BakingBloggers

Delightfully rich and full of sweet carrot flavor, this sticky carrot snack cake is baked in an Instant Pot - keeping your kitchen cool during the summer - and then spread with lemony cream cheese frosting.

When it’s too hot outside to turn your oven on, an Instant Pot comes in mighty handy, even for baking cake. This carrot snack cake bakes up lovely, light and tender. If you have a sweet tooth, you can top it with cream cheese frosting (recipe below) or sprinkle with some powdered sugar, but it’s also great just on its own.

This month my Baking Blogger group is challenging the notion that everything must be baked in a full size oven by using small appliances instead. Despite owning the Instant Pot since the summer of 2016, I really hadn’t tested its baking abilities. For a one-layer snack cake, I may never turn the oven on again!

If you don’t have an Instant Pot yet, I recommend you wait for Prime Day on July 16th to buy one on Amazon. There are always deals on Instant Pots! The one I have is 6 in 1, in other words, it has six functions. On newer pots you can get up to 10 functions!

I’ve adapted the carrot snack cake batter from my family’s favorite carrot cake recipe, known around these parts as David’s Carrot Cake. But for Instant Pot baking instructions, I looked to my friend Kathy Hester’s great Instant Pot cookbook.

If you haven’t met Kathy, you need to head on over to her blog for a tour. Her recipes are all vegan but don’t let that scare you off. Everything I’ve ever made of hers has been delicious, from her easy avocado lemon pesto to her chickpea vegetable soup, but my all time favorite is her mushroom ginger congee, made not with the traditional rice, but oats! Both my husband and I licked our bowls clean of that gorgeous dish and moaned when the pot was empty.

Instant Pot Carrot Snack Cake

The Instant Pot doesn’t make baking this carrot snack cake any faster than the traditional oven method. The advantage is keeping your kitchen cool in the summer and still getting to enjoy a tasty cake! If you live somewhere hot, trust me, that is a really big deal.

Ingredients
For the cake batter:
8 oz or 225g carrots
1 cup or 125g flour
2/3 cup or 133g sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, at room temperature
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or another light cooking oil, plus a little extra for the pan

For the cream cheese frosting:
1 cup or 125g powdered sugar
4 oz or 113g cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

To decorate and add lemon flavor:
Zest 1 lemon

Method
Peel and cut the ends off of your carrots and cut them into short lengths.

Cover them with water in a medium sized pot and cook until very fork tender, about 10-15 minutes. Drain the water off and mash them with a potato masher until there aren’t any lumps. Set aside to cool.

Prepare your 8 in or 20cm round cake pan by greasing it with a little oil.  In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Prepare your Instant Pot by adding 1 1/2 cups of water to the pot. Put the wire rack inside the pot. Fold a long length of foil to create a two-sided handle that will go under your baking pan, enabling you to remove it from the Instant Pot when the cake is done.

When the carrots are cool, add in the egg and oil and whisk till they are well combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Stir gently until they are well mixed and no dry flour is showing.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and even out the top with knife.

Cover the pan with foil, making sure to keep it flat against the sides so the pan will still fit in the Instant Pot.

Using the folded foil handle, lower the covered pan carefully into the Instant Pot, all the way down till it is sitting on the wire rack. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to set it to cook for 35 minutes, with the steam release sealed.

When the cooking time is up, leave the Instant Pot to depressurize naturally. The Instant Pot automatically goes into Keep Warm mode, so I thought it would be necessary to turn that off. In fact, it doesn’t make any difference if you do or don’t.  It will depressurize regardless. Mine took about 30 minutes.

When it’s safe to take the lid off, do so and carefully remove it. Use the foil handles to take the cake pan out of the Instant pot, remove the foil lid and set the carrot snack cake on a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes.

Turn the cake out of the pan and leave to cool completely on the wire rack.

Meanwhile, make the cream cheese frosting by mixing all of the ingredients together until they are smooth and all the lumps are gone. I start with a fork then end with a spatula.

When the cake has cooled completely, top it with the cream cheese frosting and spread it out to the edges of the cake.

Sprinkle on the lemon zest.

Cut into wedges to serve. Enjoy!

Because of the cream cheese frosting, it's best to refrigerate any leftovers. I popped my clean cake pan over the top of mine to keep it from drying out in the fridge. You can cover the cake with cling film but know that the cream cheese frosting is going to stick to it.

Many thanks to Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm for handling all the behind the scenes work this month. Check out the other small appliances bakes we have for you today!

• Air Fryer Cheesy Vegetable Tart from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Crockpot Sour Cream Pound Cake from Our Good Life 
• Hot Chocolate Pudding Cake from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking 
• Instant Pot Carrot Snack Cake from Food Lust People Love 
• Jam Cheesecake from A Day in the Life on the Farm 
• Slow Cooker Reeses Cake from Cookaholic Wife 
• Strawberry Sandwich Toaster Cake from Sneha's Recipe 

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interesting in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

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Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins #MuffinMonday

Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins celebrate the best of summer peaches with a wonderfully subtle tang. They are perfect for a summertime brunch, breakfast or snack.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’ve been flitting all about this last week and a half, with a long weekend first in New York City and then a few short days in Quito, Ecuador. Now I am finally back in my hometown of Houston, enjoying time with even more family and taking advantage of local Texas produce, like my favorite crookneck yellow squash, young carrots with greens still attached, glowing golden beets, and especially the fragrant peaches.

In the Dubai grocery stores, peaches rarely smell like peach. They’ve been picked too young and flown in from goodness knows where. The Texas peaches actually smell as a good peach should. I stood in front of the peach bin picking many of them up, one by one, inhaling that glorious aroma and tucking them into a produce bag.

When I got home, my mom reminded me that peaches are her favorite fruit, to which I replied, I know! That’s why I’m making peach cream cheese muffins. I love cooking and baking for Mom because she always loves whatever I make.

Which brings me to this month’s Muffin Monday recipe.

Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins

If you don’t have good fresh peaches, you can substitute frozen or, if you drain them well on some paper towels first, peaches canned in natural juice.

Ingredients
2 ripe but firm peaches (approximate whole weight of both: 10.5 oz or 300g)
2 cups or 250g flour
1 cup or 200g sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 oz or 113g cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup or 60g butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for the pan
1 large egg, at room temperature
3/4 cup or 180ml milk

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C. Prepare your muffin pan by buttering it or lining it with muffin cups.

Pit and dice your peaches, setting aside about 1/4 cup to top the muffins with before baking. The larger pile will go in the muffin batter.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

Tip in the bigger pile of diced peaches and stir till the peach bits are well coated with the flour. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mash the cream cheese with a fork, then pour in the cool, melted butter. Use the fork to mix the cream cheese and butter together until you have a mixture that looks like small soft curds.

Add in the egg and the milk and beat with the fork until combined. There will still be some tiny lumps of cream cheese.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold until they are just combined.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups in your prepared pan. Top with the reserved diced peach.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins are golden all around the edges and a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then remove the muffins and cool on a wire rack. These can be served warm or room temperature.

Enjoy!

Check out the other lovely muffins my Muffin Monday friends are sharing today!

• Cheesy Corn Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Chile and Raspberry Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Oreo Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Strawberry Banana Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins from Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

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