How to Make Beiju (aka Brazilian Pancakes) in 3 Simple Steps

It looks so simple: sprinkle tapioca flour in a skillet, wait till it fuses into a homogeneous mass and voila, you have the perfect beiju – a tapioca crepe-like pancake. Is there an easier dish to make? The pancake is gluten free, and you don’t need to use oil or animal products. Apart from that it’s super delicious!

However, whenever we tried baking one, sprinkling the tapioca straight out of the bag, we only got burned tapioca grains. Luckily, a Brazilian friend was willing to teach us, and we learned the magic trick, which in fact is the essential part for the tapioca flour to fuse together: water.

So what is beiju, and how do you make it? [pagebreak]

What’s in a name?

First up, vocabulary. The word beiju is used in northeast Brazil. In the Amazon they call it tapioquinha, whereas in other areas of Brazil vendors sell it simply as tapioca.

Whatever the name, it’s a pancake made of tapioca flour that in the north and northeast of Brazil is often eaten for breakfast, buttered. In the same regions but also elsewhere you’ll see vendors – tapioqueiras – selling it as a merienda, a late afternoon snack. Here you can pick your topping: savory (such as ham, cheese, or shredded chicken) or sweet(coconut, chocolate, or condensed milk, go overboard and have all three!).

What is it made of?

Tapioca is starch, a by-product of manioc flour. Manioc roots are grated and boiled to extract the arsenic poison, after which the mass is squeezed through a device called a matapi. Any liquid is left to evaporate and the remaining fine powder at the bottom is tapioca. It is also used to make Brazil’s famous pão de queso.

So how do you make beiju?

– Place the manioc starch in a bowl. Let water drip from your hands down your fingers a little at a time (adding too much water at a time will create one big gluey mess) and kneed it to a crumble.

– Heat a nonstick skillet without greasing and press a handful of the dough through a strainer, sprinkling the flakes equally over the pan.

– Let the tapioca granules fuse together, which takes less than a minute, add your topping and there you go. Enjoy your breakfast / snack.