Pao de Queijo Recipe Calculator

Mineiro Pão de Queijo: Per-Person Ingredient Calculator

Pão de queijo is the small, chewy Brazilian cheese bread you make from cassava starch (polvilho azedo plus polvilho doce), milk, vegetable oil or butter, eggs and grated queijo Minas. To work out what each guest needs, the calculator assumes bite-size 30 g pieces and about five per person. From there you get polvilho = 50 g × people and cheese = 30 g × people. Milk, oil and eggs scale off that same base.

The recipe traces back to the 18th-century farms (fazendas) of Minas Gerais. Once the gold cycle wound down, enslaved cooks had cassava starch in abundance, and they put it together with leftover milk and aged farm cheese. The result turned into everyday food across the state. It went national in the 1990s, when frozen and refrigerated dough from brands like Forno de Minas took off. The traditional Pão de Queijo de Minas holds an Indicação Geográfica (IG) recognition tied to the artisanal use of polvilho and Minas cheese.

Applications

Use it for breakfast spreads, coffee-shop bakeries, party platters, school snacks, or the pousadas of Tiradentes, Ouro Preto and Belo Horizonte. Bakeries size their dough batches around 30 g portions so the balls fit standard sheet-pan and oven cycles. Event planners lean on the per-person counts to figure out freezer space and baking time for buffets.

FAQ

Polvilho azedo or polvilho doce? Sour polvilho azedo gives you the classic puffed, slightly tangy result. Sweet polvilho doce makes a denser, smoother crumb. A lot of Mineiro family recipes blend the two (say, 70 % azedo and 30 % doce).

Can I freeze the dough? You can. Shape the balls, freeze them on a tray, then move them to a bag. Bake straight from the freezer at around 180 °C, adding 3–5 minutes to the usual time.

Is pão de queijo gluten-free? Yes. Pure polvilho has no gluten, so the traditional recipe comes out gluten-free on its own. Do double-check that the cheese, the milk and any seasonings you use haven't been cross-contaminated.