Daring Bakers, May: Pão de Queijo

This month's challenge was hosted by Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado!, a very talented Brazilian who this month brings us Pão de Queijo, which is a cheesy bread with a popover-like consistency--airy, chewy, and flavorful. They serve Pão de Queijo by the basketful at Brazilian steakhouses, and I enjoy it even more than the copious amounts of meat and the delicious vegetables they serve. As another bonus, these are gluten free and delicious!


This is what mine looked like. They're pretty pretty, aren't they, with the flecks of toasted cheddar jack in them?


Now let's take a closer look.








OHHHHH! Looks like my popovers were more like popunders. Or Flatovers. Flatunders, or underpoppers.


I think I went wrong with the batter. The original recipe makes 80 puffs, which is about a 6 waistline inches more than my Hun and I need, so I quartered it to make 20. Unfortunately, the original recipe calls for 1 to 3 eggs, depending on however many you "need" . . . to get it "right." I figured I'd just use one whole egg and be all right. The texture of the dough was similar to ambrosia.


I was supposed to have a dough thick enough to form into balls, and I was able to, though they were, er, loose, soft balls.


In the oven, they flattened out considerably, then kinda sorta started to lift back up.


Just not enough to become fully ballsy. They were more like cookies. Cheese cookies.


So they weren't as light and fluffy as they could've been, but they still had some decent air and chew--poppy enough! The next time, I'll probably stick to doing no less than half the recipe and make sure the recipe has a bit more meat to it--more meatball, less ambrosia, with no flattening at all after forming.

You can check out my fellow DBers' results by following their links through our blogroll.