Eating With Ayla

I know, it has been AGES since I last posted and I really don’t have any excuses for that.  I’ve been cooking, I’ve been baking – heck, I even finished a 3 month culinary course in December so surely I would have a lot to say about that! And I do, it was fantastic.  It was a dream.  Waking up in the morning and then just being able to work in a kitchen all day with some great classmates and instructors.  Alas, the dream has ended.  It’s back to reality now.  Which means, finding a job (boo!), but then also finally coming back to trying to regularly post on my blog.

So hopefully I can share some of the great things I learned during my three month course, as well as some things I am just trying out at home for fun.  The problem is – I’ll admit – I’m not very diligent with the picture taking process and I will try to improve this!  If anything, I’ll just take a few pictures of the final product, so will try and take more documenting the whole process.

For the first post after something like 3 months, I’m going to share with you a VERY easy recipe I learned last week.  A few ingredients, a few steps and voila – something delicious.  It really doesn’t get better than that.

When I was younger I lived in Brazil for two years and some of my favorite food items are Brazilian (the number one being brigadeiros, amazing, look it up!).  My second favorite is pao de queijo, which is essentially cheese bread.  Cheese + bread = nothing better than that.   It is crunchy on the outside and soft and cheesy in the middle.  It tastes the best straight from the oven (but then again, so does everything else).   However, with this recipe, I would suggest making it shortly before serving otherwise it loses the perfect texture.

Whenever I find something so delicious, I automatically assume that it must be difficult to make, but this really isn’t the case at all, especially with this. So here it goes:

Ingredients:

Makes 12 big pao de queijos (next time I might try it in a mini cupcake dish, as that is more of the traditional size)

1 egg
1/4 cup canola oil
2/3 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup tapioca flour
3/4 cup of cheddar cheese (grated)

Instructions:

Oven is to 375 Fahrenheit.

Grease the cupcake/muffin tin and leave that aside for now.

Using a food processor (see, already super easy).  Add in the egg, canola oil, milk and salt and blend for about 5 seconds.

Then add in the tapioca flour and blend until all combined (about 10-15 seconds).   You may need to get a spatula in there after 5-7 seconds to push down the flour.

Lastly, add in the cheese and blend once again for a few seconds until everything is incorporated.

Pour in about 2 tablespoons of batter per muffin tin (whatever remains, just distribute it).

Bake for 25 minutes until golden and puffed up! ENJOY.  (or wait until cooled and then remove them, I hate waiting for things to cool)