We love Brazilian Cheese Bread, but tapioca flour has little nutritional value. I have been experimenting with making the recipe with coconut flour to add fiber. The recipe is GREAT. My whole family loves it.
Here's the problem. We are trying our daughter off cheese. I like the idea of going vegan, but that will require learning to cook without cheese. I could try this recipe without cheese, but I'm wondering if anyone has tried making these cheese balls without cheese. If so, what did you do.
Here's my healthier recipe:
Pamelita’s Brazilian Cheese Bread
Makes about 19 1.5 tablespoon breads or 33 1 tablespoon breads
INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups tapioca flour
1 T flax seed meal (optional)
1/8 teaspoon salt
¼ C coconut flour
1/3 cup olive oil, grapeseed oil, or butter
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup rice milk, soy milk, or milk
1 clove minced garlic
2 beaten large eggs
1 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
2. Mix together tapioca flour, flax meal and salt.
3. Sift coconut flour and mix into other dry ingredients.
4. Pour olive oil, water, milk, and garlic into a saucepan and place over heat.
5. When the mixture comes to a boil, remove from heat immediately, and stir with dry ingredients until smooth.
6. Set aside to rest for 10 to 15 minutes.
7. Stir the beaten egg into the tapioca mixture until well combined.
8. Stir in parmesan cheese.
9. For easier handling, refrigerate until cool.
10. Drop rounded, 1 to 1.5 tablespoon (or larger, if desired) balls of the mixture onto an ungreased baking sheet. (I like to use dough scoops.) The bigger the bread balls, the gooier the insides will be (until they cool, then they’re more bread-like.)
11. Bake in preheated oven until the tops are lightly to moderately browned, 15 to 20 minutes. When hot, the insides will be gooey.
You can also freeze the balls and bake at a later time. I place the raw balls on a wax paper lined cookie sheet. When they are frozen, I put them in a Ziplock Brand Freezer Bag (no BPA, no phthalates, no dioxin in their bags.) When we want a few, we thaw just a bit in the microwave then bake in toaster oven.
Please note that coconut flour is extremely high in fiber and has no protein. Caution should be taken in changing the ratio of coconut flour, egg, and oil.
