The Brazilian street food made from small baked cheese rolls and tapioca flour is pão de queijo, which literally means “cheese bread” in Portuguese.
Pão de queijo is strongly associated with Minas Gerais, a state in southeastern Brazil. Its dough uses cassava-derived tapioca flour rather than wheat flour, along with cheese, milk or water, eggs, oil or butter, and salt. The result is crisp or lightly browned outside and chewy, elastic, and airy inside.
Its history is linked to colonial Brazil, when wheat was scarce and cooks used cassava starch as a bread substitute. Cheese was added later, with the modern form developing by the late nineteenth century. The rolls are often eaten at breakfast or as a snack with coffee and are sold in bakeries, supermarkets, and streetside stands. They are naturally gluten-free, but they are not the same as French gougères or neighboring South American breads such as Paraguayan chipa, which use different recipes and traditions.