From Brazil to Los Gatos: Pão de Queijo

I’m giving you fair warning right up front. These Brazilian cheese rolls from Mãní Snacks, based in Los Gatos, are addictive! Crispy on the outside, tender and chewy on the inside, delicious cheesy flavor—what’s not to like?

“It is truly the food obsession of Brazil,” said Monika Batista, co-owner and Managing Director of Mãní Snacks. “The rolls are eaten all over Brazil now with some regional adaptation to the original recipe. They are extremely popular and eaten with breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks.”

Family Recipe

The rolls, called pão de queijo and pronounced pown-deh-kay-zho, are from a family recipe given to Batista by her aunts, Catholic nuns from Minas Gerais, where the cheese rolls originated.

“I grew up in a large family with six brothers,” Batista said. “And as my mother's helper in the kitchen, responsible for baking, I have been baking these treats for as long as I can remember.”

The rolls come frozen in two flavors—original and jalapeño. They’re about an inch or so in diameter and puff up slightly when baked. The ingredients are simple and gluten-free: flour from the manioc root (also known as yuca, tapioca or cassava), cotija cheese, Parmesan cheese, 2 percent skim milk, canola oil, pasteurized eggs, salt and jalapeño peppers.

Batista adapted her aunts’ recipe to create the rolls she now sells at Mãní Snacks, using a proprietary blend of sweet and sour manioc flour, which is GMO (genetically modified organisms)-free and kosher certified. The cotija cheese, a Mexican hard cow’s milk cheese, is “similar to the Queijo de Minas, the Brazilian cheese used in the original recipes in Minas Gerais” Batista explained.

Mãní Snacks is Born

Batista’s background is in architecture, specifically hotel and restaurant design. She loved to make the pão de queijo for her friends, and when co-owner Scott Richards tasted them, he was hooked. With a background in sales and marketing (and a “lifelong foodie” according to Batista), he convinced her that others would be hooked as well, and Mãní Snacks was born July 2011.

Batista took an e-class from a Brazilian University known for its research about the pão de queijo. She learned about large-scale production and how that would affect the original recipe.

“We like to joke that I graduated from UPQ (University of the Pão de Queijo),” she said.

“It took us about a year (and lots of eating!) to replicate the original recipe in regards to adapting it to locally sourced ingredients,” she continued. “We are very pleased to have come very close to the original taste and aroma (many Brazilians can attest to that). As an homage to California, my adopted country, we decided to launch a Jalapeño Flavor, which is not found in Brazil.”

They also plan to add garlic flavor pão de queijo to the product line this winter.

Growing in Popularity

According to Batista, sales of frozen pão de queijo is a $200 million a year industry in Brazil.

“That is retail sales in grocery stores, etc. and does not include restaurants, fast food, coffee shops like Starbucks, etc. Or, of course, homemade,” Batista said.

And, since Mãní Snacks started, they seem to be catching on in the Bay Area. The cheese balls are available in several stores around the bay, and Batista said she is working on local partners, possibly selling them soon at such stores as Lunardi’s and Whole Foods.

For now, they offer free local delivery for orders of two or more packages. At the current price of $7.50 for a package of 20 rolls, that’s a screaming deal.

I tried both the regular and the jalapeño versions, serving them with a vegetable soup I had made. They were the perfect accompaniment. My husband could not get enough, and I had to force myself to stop eating them!

For more information, or to order, check the Mãní Snacks website or Facebook page.

Buon appetito, amici!