Looks very good and very close what you get in Brazil. Pao de queijo is one of my favorite snack foods ever since I was a little kid. I am originally Brazilian and am quite curious about making these from scratch using American ingredients. I'll have to try it soon. I usually get these frozen or in a pre-made mix from an import store (there's usually at least one in every major metro area) but have been itching to make them myself for a while. A few comments: - I was quite surprised to see garlic in the recipe, as I've never heard of that being part of pao de queijo before. I asked some of my family members and they hadn't heard of that either. - Perhaps the amount of starch or water needs some tweaking, as normally these are rolled into balls rather than scooped. Some bakeries make them quite big, with lots of the gooey insides. Some of my family prefers that, while I prefer the smaller ones. - The cheese used for pao de queijo in Brazil is called queijo minas. Many recipes I've seen call for minas mixed with parmesan for more flavor. Minas is a fresh, watery and brittle cheese. While I've seen it at import stores, I think the more commonly-found Mexican queso fresco would substitute quite well. I will try that when I make this recipe. It might be wise to dry out the fresh cheese a bit--I think they use a slightly aged minas cheese for this. - In Brazil you can buy polvilho doce, which is regular (sweet) tapioca starch, and polvilho azedo, sour tapioca starch. I think the sour variety goes through some fermentation before being dried. I've seen some recipes that call for mixing a bit of sour tapioca for a more flavorful pao de quejio. - I think I'm the only one in my family that thinks this, but I LOVE these out of the refrigerator the next day. The cheese taste gets a nice boost. I can't speak for this recipe, having not made it yet, but I've found this to be true with all the PdQ I've had.

• Reply