Pandebono (Colombian Cheese Bread)

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Cassava starch and two cheeses baked at high heat into chewy cheese rolls. No wheat flour, no yeast, and naturally gluten free. Makes twelve.

Prep Time15

Cook Time25

Total Time40

Course: Breads

Cuisine: Colombian

Keyword: Colombian pandebonos

Servings: pandebonos

Calories: 161kcal

Author: Angela Giraldo

Ingredients

240 g cassava starch almidón de yuca or tapioca starch: not cassava flour
2 tablespoons masarepa or wheat flour pre-cooked corn flour, for structure
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
50 g queso costeño, or feta, grated the salty one; feta is the substitute abroad
200 g fresh cheese, grated queso campesino or queso fresco
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 large egg
Milk a splash if the dough is too dry to hold together

Instructions

Heat the oven to 220°C (425°F). It needs to be this hot: pandebonos rise from the burst of heat rather than from yeast.
Mix the cassava starch, the masarepa, the baking powder, the sugar and the salt thoroughly. A food processor makes this easier.
Add the fresh cheese, the salty cheese, the butter and the egg, and work them into the dry mixture until you have a smooth dough. If it is too dry to hold together, add a splash of milk.
Shape balls about the size of a golf ball and put them on a lined baking tray.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden. Serve immediately, with a cup of hot chocolate or coffee.

Notes

Cassava starch is not cassava flour, and the packet matters: starch is the fine white powder, sometimes sold as tapioca starch or almidón agrio, and flour is the coarser ground root. Only the starch gives pandebono its chew. The high oven is deliberate too: there is no yeast, so the rise comes from a fast burst of heat setting the outside while steam expands inside. Eat them the day they are made. Pandebonos are wonderful warm and turn hard and rubbery within hours, which is why Colombian bakeries make them in small batches all day.

Nutrition