Brazilian Cheese Bread

I'm not kidding you when I tell you that this is the easiest recipe I've ever followed. If you have a blender and a muffin tin, you can look like a culinary rock star here. I think these will make a weekly appearance at our house and I would choose them over the Cheddar Cheese Puffs that I made on Christmas.

I seem to be on a cheese bread kick lately. Brazilian Cheese Bread is simply addictive and absolutely delicious. You can play around with different cheese to produce different tastes. I chose to use Parmesan cheese and I added a few turns of fresh cracked black pepper. When these delectable little beauties are baked, the result is a light and airy texture with a nice chewy texture in the bottom of the bread. The recipe calls for tapioca flour which can easily be found at a health food store or Whole Foods store. Once you have secured the tapioca flour, the rest is easy. The best part is that you could whip up the batter and put them in the oven about 20 minutes before serving dinner and you have yourself nice hot cheese bread to serve up. It looks like you spent so much longer but all it involved was a blender and a greased muffin tin. BONUS: tapioca flour is gluten-free for those who eliminate gluten from their diet.

Ingredients

* 1 egg (room temperature)
* 1/3 cup olive oil
* 2/3 cup milk
* Scant 1 1/2 cups (170 grams) tapioca flour
* 1/2 cup (packed, about 66 grams) grated cheese, your preference.
* 1 teaspoon of salt (or more to taste)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease a mini-muffin tin. Put all of the ingredients into a blender and pulse until smooth. You may need to use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the blender so that everything gets blended well. At this point you can store the batter in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until all puffy and just lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack for a few minutes.

Eat while warm or save to reheat later.

Enough batter for 16 mini muffin sized cheese breads.

Note that Brazilian cheese bread is very chewy, a lot like Japanese mochi.