Wow, I've never heard of pão de queijo in a muffin pan!! Cool. I'll have to try out both of these methods.

For those who want to make this, make sure you get the right type of tapioca flour. I hear that it makes a difference in the consistency and outcome of the bread.

Thank you so much for posting this...I love that you've put up an easy peasy version of this highly addictive cheese bread recipe!

Hey, I'm really excited to try this recipe! It's like chipa! My husband's family is from paraguay and they make this too, only they call it chipa. Relatively easy to make (not as easy as this one), but a stiffer dough and you roll it in logs and cut it up. The main difference is adding anise seed, which really brings out the flavor!

Chipa Paraguaya

4 eggs
½ cup milk
2 tsp. salt
½ cup oil
3 cups grated cheese
Tapioca starch (about 1 ½ pkg. of 425 gr. – 425 gr. equals 2 ¾ cup)
1 tbsp. aniseed

Mix, make rolls, cut desired length and bake @ 400F for 20-30 minutes (depending on size of rolls).

You can freeze these on the baking sheet and when frozen put in a bag and bake when needed.

I love this super-easy blender method! I've been experimenting with lots of different cheeses, too. We're lucky to have a large Portuguese community in Rhode Island, and a large Brazilian community in Boston, which means there are markets within an hour of my house that stock all of the ingredients for authentic Brazilian and Portuguese cooking.

Oh my god I am in love! I absolutely cannot stop eating these whenever I go to Brazilian restaurants, and the main response I got from Brazilians who I asked for recipes was, "oh, we always buy them frozen at the store." I can't wait to try this. Tapioca flour here I come.

Those look amazing, and so easy! I love the blender method too -- they look great a little sunken on top!

Had these at a Brazilian place a year ago and have been dreaming of them ever since....thanks!

A couple questions, mainly based on things people have written in the comments (and some more about baking in general):

1) What is the "right type" of tapioca flour? (see first comment). Will there be more than one type at Whole Foods?

2) Does it matter if the milk is cold or at room temperature?

3) If I freeze them on a baking sheet or in the pan, do I have to let them defrost before baking, or do I just put them in the oven as if they were not frozen?

Hi Jon, I'll try to answer some of your questions. 1) From other recipes I've read, I think you can get a sour tapioca flour too, so that may be where that's coming from. At Whole Foods I found Bob's Red Mill tapioca flour. Only one type. Worked great. 2) I suspect room temp milk would work better, but I used cold. I did use room temp eggs. 3) No idea on the freezing. ~Elise

Regarding the right type of tapioca flour, look for a very fine white flour. Google 'polvilho azedo' (the name of the flour in Portuguese). There are plenty of pictures there to help out the folks who don't know what they are looking for!

The pic looks like regular muffin trays to me, not mini muffin ones. The minis are pretty tiny and have about 24-36 holes to the pan. Have we gone to calling regular size muffins minis and the giant muffins regular?

Hi Debbie, Believe me, this is a mini muffin tray. I apologize that the photos don't give one enough of a sense of scale to see this clearly. ~Elise

These sound awesome!!! and so easy to make, I can't wait to try them.

Well, this is a traditional recipe from my state (Minas Gerais) and here we make them slightly different. The ingredients are 500g of tapioca flour, 4 free-range eggs, 1 cup of milk, 150 ml of oil, 1/2 cup of water, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and our traditional cheeses (in America I don't know what kind you could use). Put the tapioca flour in a bowl. Mix the milk, the oil and the water in a pan and boil them. Scald the flour with this mixture and stir it with a wooden spoon (we never stir the ingredients with other kinds of spoons). Let it cool and then add the eggs (one by one) and the salt. While the batter is still soft, add the cheeses and incorporate them completely into the batter. Make smalls balls and put them in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. We generally eat them hot with "requeijão". I found "requeijão", which is a kind of cheese spread, in some markets in New Jersey. Probably you can find it in other markets that sell Brazilian food. This video shows how to make the recipe (though it's in Portuguese, you can get an idea following the images). http://globominas.globo.com/GloboMinas/Entretenimento/TerraDeMinas/Receitas/0,,MUL1528029-9637-38741,00.html Hope you like them :)

I recently needed to find rye flour for a bread recipe and went to every major grocery store within about 10 miles. No one carried it. So I hardly think that tapioca flour is going to be easy to find!

I did finally find a tiny bag at Whole Paycheck, I mean, Whole Foods, and it cost a small fortune. I'll see if they have the tapioca flour there.

But I'm wondering, has anyone tried substituting any flours?

My husband lived in Brasil for 2 years and I know he'll love me making these, I haven't found a traditional recipe yet.

You can order from Bob's Red Mill on line-many interesting items. bobsredmill.com

Thanks for the clarification on the muffin tray. OK, so I got the flour and the rest of the ingredients and will begin to test these next week when there are bodies other than mine in the house to try them out. Not that I couldn't do it myself, but that would kill the whole diet idea that I am being so successful on! ;-) Will let you know how I make out and the house consensus.

Great! Note that they should be quite chewy, much like Japanese mochi if you've ever had that. You may need to add more salt, depending on the cheese you are using and your taste, and you might want to experiment with cheeses. ~Elise

Thank you for posting your recipe. I usually turn to a box mix I can find at a local grocery store to make these. I've attempted making them from scratch a few times with different cheeses (cheddar is awful for this btw), but could never find a recipe that had the right texture, so I look forward to giving your version a go.

Funny that you mention mochi because pao de queijo are very popular in Japan, too.

Thank you so much for posting this. I had these once at a Brazilian steakhouse and they are so incredibly good. I tried your cheese puff recipe thinking that they were the same as these and found out I was wrong(even though they were still really good).

Anyways thanks for constantly sharing your recipes I check your site every day and everything I've made was awesome.

I can't believe how light and fluffy the tops of these little breads look. What an unusual and fun recipe!

Hi Dara - Yep, the fluff up quite a bit, and at the same time they are quite dense and chewy. ~Elise

I plan to try these as soon as I can, sounds delicious. Can I use a regular muffin tin? If I need to get a mini pan, I'll do it, just have to get to a town big enough to have a kitchen store.

Hi Janet, you could try it with a regular muffin tin, but every instance of this recipe that I've seen uses a mini muffin tin. I got mine by the way at the local grocery store. They're pretty easy to come by. ~Elise

Wow! This cheese bread looks wonderful.
Do you think it would be a good sidedish for hearty soups or stews?
Greetings from Germany.

Thank you for posting this recipe. I have been looking for a bread recipe to serve with evening meals. I really dislike going to the store to buy stale bread. Thank you again, but I must ask about storing the mixture in the refrig. for a week, is that required or is it just that you can if need too.

Hi Leon, you can make ahead and store it if you want. ~Elise

These sound great. Does anyone have a suggestion for the best kind of cheese to use in this recipe? If anyone has suggestions, PLEASE let me know!!! Thanks.

I've tested it with cheddar, Parmesan, a mix of those two, and with farmer's cheese. Farmers cheese by far turned out the best. I used Mexican farmer's cheese, queso fresco. Cheddar was the heaviest, oiliest, though still tasty. ~Elise

Thank you for sharing this! I am *sure* to make this soon! Love it.

I've been looking for an easy pão de queijo recipe for some time, and I have never committed to trying to make one - this one will have to be my first try! My uncle has celiac disease - and isn't a very skilled cook - so hopefully this will be something he can do on his own!

They are so cute! I just want to squeeze their little muffin cheeks! Making these this weekend. :)

I made these on Sunday. I did add some aniseed to the batch. They were terrific. However, because of the teenagers preferences, I will leave out the aniseed in future repros. I want to give the other methods a try as well.

One question - the inside of my pao de queijo looks like undercooked dough. Is that okay? It tasted good so I figured it was okay. Anyway, just checking in case I was supposed to do something differently (I had left it in the oven for 18 minutes and it was golden brown on the outside). Thanks for the great recipe, Elise!

Yes, that's what it is supposed to look like. It's dense and chewy (and puffy at the same time). ~Elise

I love the variety of international recipes you feature! Any chance you have ever tried Costa Rican gallo pinto? It is a delicious rice and beans mixture that I loved while visiting the country. I've never quite tasted anything that mimiced the flavor that enticed me so much while in CR. Perhaps a future post... :)

Thanks! Haven't tried gallo pinto, but I'll keep my eye out for it. ~Elise

I made these tonight and I have to admit I'm stumped. They were completely tasteless except for a faint olive oil flavor. I used queso fresco and even added a bit more than the recipe called for. They turned out perfectly puffy and chewy, just no flavor. What on earth did I do wrong?

As for other comments about finding tapioca flour, I found mine in the natural foods section of my local Raley's (regular ol' local grocery store).

More salt. It's difficult to give a precise amount of cheese because cheeses vary in saltiness. Tapioca flour itself is rather flavorless, so the flavor really comes from the cheese, and if there isn't enough salt for the cheese and the tapioca, you need more salt. This is one of the reasons I'm recommending starting with a small batch, so you can perfect the amount of seasoning you need for the cheese you are using. You can also add herbs to the bread. What's given here is a base recipe that you can easily dress up with more seasoning. ~Elise

Being a brazilian living in France for almost ten years can make one forget about those lovely recipes. It is not easy to make the original recipe from Minas Gerais but it is really faboulous to make something similar. Thanks for this wonderful post!

What size muffin cups are you using? They look like regular cupcake size in the picture. I'm not sure I want to buy "mini" size if that is different just to try the recipe. Thank you.

As mentioned earlier in the comments, these are definitely mini-muffin pans. I have no idea how the recipe would work with regular muffin pans. All references I've seen to this recipe using this method have used mini-muffin pans. ~Elise

Elise - I looooove these. I could never pronounce the name right. There is a Brazilian BBQ in the Farmers Market at LA, and it's a buffet, and I always load up a bunch of these. They are so delicious and I love the texture, especially when they are hot. Thanks for the recipe. I can't wait to try them. DROOLING!

You mean the farmer's market on Fairfax in Miracle Mile off of Wilshire? The Brazilian BBQ as you enter the market from the parking lot? The food there is truly magnificent. ~Elise

The boys got home way too late to try the delicious warm cheese muffins. So I chucked them. I'm going to make another batch. I'll add a little more salt than I did to the first batch and I will also add some parmagiana reggiano to the queso blanco. Looking for a zing.

Hi Elise,
Just a heads up for all those of us who can't have dairy: I just have the second batch of my "no-cheese" bread in the oven and they turned out SOOO good! I used a non dairy cheddar and almond milk, added a pinch of Italian herbs and some garlic for taste and voila! It's so delicious! I can only imagine how good they'd be with real cheese... *sigh*.
Thanks for your inspiration!

Great! Thanks for letting us know. ~Elise

EX-Pat in Brazil,
what can I say, wonderfull food, people and a tropical botanical graden, with 7500 km of the most wonerfull beaches

What other cheeses did you try? Thanks.

Parmesan and cheddar. I liked the queso fresco the best, then the parmesan, then the cheddar. ~Elise

Yes, farmers market on Fairfax, yeah, the Brazilian BBQ is so very good. Office used to be not too far from there so went there all the time. Thanks for the cheese pointer. Can't wait to try. :)

Thank you for this recipe! Houston is rife with churrascarias and all of them serve this bread. It is hard not to just eat the bread all night long which would defeat the purpose (meat!). I'm eating my first batch and they are SO good. I used the queso fresco and I think I just need to add a little salt. Luckily I have some more in the refrigerator ready to go. Now just to keep myself from using all the dough tonight.

Thanks Elise for a fantastic dinner idea. I opened up the fridge this morning and pondered how I could use up some prosciutto and a few fresh tomatoes. I read your recipe and then instead of a (desperately needed) large grocery shop I opted to simply buy a bag of tapioca flour and have a (desperately needed) afternoon nap. With the least of effort, I am now a kitchen hero as we filled the warm buns with the prosciutto and tomato. It was feast fit for a king.

What a great idea! ~Elise

I love this bread. My Brazilian friend introduced this to me and I thought the inside was raw the first time I ate them. I want to hit up a churrascaria now!!

We had a Brazilian housekeeper growing up and I so fondly remember these little cheese puffs waiting for us when we came inside from playing in the cold. I made the cheese puffs from your site just last week for my kids, trying to replicate that experience from my childhood, and it didn't quite cut it (but they were good)! I can't wait to try these - thanks!

Good call on upping the salt Elise, the texture was perfect but they did lack a little taste. Looking forward to making them again with more salt and maybe a little herbs. Maybe even a cheese like Havarti with dill would work. Thanks!

These look delicious! Can't wait to try the recipe. Sorry to be a pain since I know this has been asked a few times already in the comments, but would it make a huge difference in the baking time if I used a mini-muffin pan that has 24 openings? Those are the only kind of mini-muffin pans I can find, and the openings in my pan definitely look smaller than your mini-muffin pan.

I don't think it would make a difference. Although the photo is deceiving, this really is a mini muffin tin. ~Elise

Thanks for the recipe for Brazilian cheese bread! That for sure brings back memories from a long time ago in Brazil, when after work every Saturday I stopped by the bakery to have the delicious cheese bread. For sure I am going to try this recipe. Thanks again.

I made these today using queso fresco and they are so yummy. I live in a small town and the local grocery stores did not carry tapioca flour but I was able to find it at a health food store. I also had to bake them about 22 minutes total but that could be because I live at a high elevation (5000 feet). I am looking forward to trying them with different cheeses too.

I LOVE (adoro!) pao de queijo, and have been reading Fer for years, before her food blog. A delightful collision of worlds. I had never heard of the blender method. Will give it a whirl. Ahem.

Elise, the Brazilian recipes I have call for a mix of "queijo de Minas", which is the white fresh cheese very similar to queso fresco, and parmesan cheese. Usually 1/3 parmesan + 2/3 queijo de minas/queso fresco. I think that helps with the salt, since parmesan has a lot more salt than queso fresco. I have to try this recipe, it looks easier than the ones I have!

Thanks for the advice Luciana! ~Elise

Made these yesterday. The texture was right on but I think there needed to be more cheese flavor. Thanks so much for this recipe - will definitely be making again and trying new additions!

HI Elise! I just finished baking a bunch. I've never tried the Brazilian cheese bread so cant compare. Mine didnt turn out as fluffy as the picture above though, hmmm.. maybe because i used regular size muffin pan. I followed the recipe to a T and used cheddar cheese. The texture is similar to "bibingka" or a type of rice cake here in the Philippines. Thanks :)

I'm gonna try this tonight - however I have one last question. I do not have mini muffin pans - can u think of an alternative? Maybe regular size muffin cups?

If you use regular size muffin cups, the bread won't rise as much. ~Elise

Thanks so much for this, Elise! I used to buy these (something similar anyway) frozen at Whole Foods, but my local store stopped carrying them. My boys were asking about them just last week, and I love that this is easy and that the batter can be made ahead. Advance planning is crucial around my house! :)

These rocked! I love tapioca, cheese and popovers so I knew I had to make this. I used leftover fresh mozzarella and added extra salt. Yum. Next time, I'll try using some Brazilian farmer's cheese.

I love this site and use many of your recipes (Italian pot roast, tomato pie). Your directions are clear, the pictures beautiful and your style encouraging. Thanks so much!

These are in the oven as I type! I used queso cotija from Superior, a local Mexican grocery store here in OC...I just check on them, they look delicious, smell awesome and are going to disappear as soon as they come out of the oven, my boys are chomping at the bit to get their hands on them!

Ah... I finally made the cheese bread. I used a combination of queso fresco and Parmesan cheese - a lil more salt and I used regular muffin pans but just filled each cup only halfway. The result was a super delicious cheese bread that tasted almost exactly like the ones i get at Fogo de Chao. Sooo good. Your recipe was soooo easy to make. Thanks for this great recipe of something I love so much but is hard to buy.

I just made a batch, and it was a total disaster. They came out rock hard and inedible. I must have used the wrong type of tapioca flour? Mine was called "cassava flour", but it was yellowish, not white. BOo hoo, a huge waste of ingredients. My kids were waiting for them too! :(

Sounds like you had the wrong ingredient. Tapioca flour is white. ~Elise

I finally made these last night, and they were really stellar, I loved the chew from the tapioca flour and my friend who has recently traveled in Brazil was SO EXCITED to see them come out of the oven. I swear I didn't actually plan the menu with her mind, she just happened to stop by in time for dinner.

I used a little buttermilk because I didn't have quite enough milk left and I liked the slight tang it gave.

Love the idea of adding buttermilk! ~Elise

In Sao Paulo, we would cut them open and put a little meat or chicken in them and some type of cheese that we squeezed out of a bag. They are soooo delicious. For dessert, they were made without the cheese and we put caramel in them! I miss Brasil!

I found tapioca flour at Ranch 99 in Northern California. They have tapioca starch and tapioca flour. The tapioca flour is $0.59 each bag.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I came across your blog last night while googling for instructions on making caramel. I haven't been able to pry myself away since. I was looking at the various lamb recipes last night, right after I had a very satisfying dinner, and my mouth just couldn't stop watering!

My first reaction upon seeing the picture of these cheese bread is 'OMG, that looks exactly like the yummy bread I had in that Brazilian restaurant!'. I can't wait to try out both versions. The only thing I am afraid of is that I'll eat the whole batch or batches and that will not do good to my waistline. :)

I do have one question about the muffin pan. Do I need to dust it with flour after oiling it, or is a thin layer of olive oil enough?

No need to dust the pan with flour, oil is enough. ~Elise

Great recipe, is there any substitute for the tapioca flour? like tapioca starch or just regular flour?

You can use tapioca starch, it's the same thing as tapioca flour. Regular flour will not work for this recipe. ~Elise

Great recipe! For anyone wondering whether this works in a regular-sized muffin pan, it does! The first time I made this, I poured it into 10 regular-sized muffin cups and baked for about 25 minutes. They came out very similar to popovers, but a little chewier inside. The second time, I replaced some of the oil with milk and only poured the batter into 7 muffin cups. My result looked like yours, Elise, only bigger. I'm not sure if they came out differently because there was less fat, more batter in each cup, or both. I also tried 2 different cheeses - first, cheap supermarket feta (bleh - I was asking for it); then, parmigiano-reggiano - tasty! Despite their different aspects, my roommates dubbed both versions successful, and I'm looking forward to making them with my mom, who is gluten-intolerant AND owns a mini-muffin pan. Thanks, Elise :)

Made this yesterday using about a cup of grated Parmigiano Reggiano (Parmesan) cheese. The batter seemed very watery so I added more Tapioca Flour. I ended up using about 3 cups of Tapioco Flour. Maybe is was because I added more cheese. Anyway it all turned out great and they tasted terrific. We had some as an accompaniment to dinner - very yummy indeed.

Thank you for the wonderful recipe.

Yep, the batter is pretty runny. Almost like pancake batter. Glad it worked out for you with the changes you made! ~Elise