No Bread? No Problem
My Favorite Bread (and Matzah) Swap for Passover (and Every Day), or Why My Favorite (Pesach) Bread Is Brazilian, Gluten-Free, and Possibly Columbus-Approved
Beyond Bablylon is about stories, food, and fusion, so here`s another one.
At my restaurant Numnum in Basel, I had a Brazilian cook who swore by these little cheese puffs—pão de queijo (“cheese bread” in Portuguese), Brazil’s beloved snack. I laughed it off. Cute, I thought. But we were busy with “serious” food.
You know—bread. Real bread.
Then one year, just before Passover, I had a flash of inspiration.
No flour. No gluten. Just tapioca starch, eggs, oil, and cheese.
Kosher for Pesach. Gluten-free. Delicious.
So I baked a batch.
They were an instant hit—chewy, gooey, golden little miracles. I even made sandwiches out of them.
Kosher for Passover sandwiches! And just like that, the joke was on me.
A few years later, I took a South American barista course in Munich. What did they serve with the espresso?
Pão de queijo bagels. I kid you not. Brazil had come full circle.
🌱 But where did these chewy wonders come from?
Pão de queijo is a traditional Brazilian snack, originally from the states of Minas Gerais and Goiás. Its roots stretch back to the 18th century, during the slavery period in colonial Brazil.
On the fazendas mineiras (coffee plantations), enslaved cooks prepared afternoon snacks—coffee and bread—for the masters. But there was a catch: wheat was scarce, only becoming widely available in Brazil in the 1920s.
So they turned to what they had: manioc, a native root long used by Indigenous peoples. They made starch from it, mixed it with local cheeses, and baked it in wood-fired ovens. The result? These chewy, springy, brilliant little puffs.
By the 1950s, the recipe had spread across Brazil. Today, every Brazilian has a family version. And pão de queijo is now served everywhere from roadside stalls to designer cafés—and yes, even on a Passover table in Switzerland.
🧬 Wait, Columbus was Jewish?
Apparently so.
A recent DNA study revealed that Christopher Columbus may have had Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Add to that the Hebrew symbols in his letters, his curious use of Jewish calendar dates, and the fact that he set sail the day after the 1492 expulsion deadline—and it starts to sound less like theory, more like history.
So here’s the joke I can’t resist:
Maybe when he reached the shores of the Americas—fleeing persecution, seeking freedom—this is what he ate for Pesach.
No matzah. No gefilte fish.
No yeast. No gluten.
Just a warm plate of pão de queijo.
Soft, stretchy, and utterly free of chametz.
🧁 Pão de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese Bread)
Adapted for Passover from Olivia’s Cuisine
Ingredients
3 cups tapioca starch (the cocaine-like white stuff—not flour!)
1 cup milk (or thinned ricotta for a softer version)
2 tablespoons oil + 2 tablespoons butter
113g grated cheese of your choice (I use Emmental)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
Method
Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
Bring milk, butter, oil, and salt to a boil in a saucepan.
Place tapioca starch in a large bowl. Pour in the hot liquid and stir—until it looks like white fondant.
Add eggs one at a time, mixing until smooth.
Gradually add cheese. The dough should be soft, even pourable.
Spoon into a lined cupcake tray (or a greased bagel mold).
Bake for 15–20 minutes, until puffed and golden.
Serve warm—or eat them all before they cool.
To freeze:
Shape raw dough into balls, freeze on a tray, then bag. Bake straight from frozen at 200°C for 25–30 minutes.
✡️ Kosher Notes
Tapioca starch (from cassava) is not chametz and not kitniyot according to most rabbinic authorities—especially for Sephardim. Many Ashkenazim today also allow it during Passover, particularly for gluten-free diets.
As always, check your community standards.
So this year, break the matzah monotony.
Try something pillowy, flexible, a little rebellious, with a long history, and many fans.
(and they go surprisingly well with jam and butter, by the way.)
Because sometimes, freedom comes in the form of a golden little puff.
But don’t tell the other bloggers.
This one’s between us.