AI-generated image
Paçoca
Peanut and cassava flour sweet
Paçoca: crumbly sweet of ground roasted peanuts, sugar and fine cassava flour, pressed into rounds
Kids across Brazil grow up on paçoca, the pale peanut sweet that melts into sandy crumbs the moment it is bitten, and no festa junina bag of treats is complete without a few. It started in the countryside of São Paulo and Minas as a way to use the peanut harvest, pounded in a wooden pestle with sugar and cassava flour, and today it is mostly pressed into little discs called rolhas. The flavour is pure toasted peanut, salty-sweet, with a texture between shortbread and fudge. Fine cassava flour (farinha de mandioca fina) is sold in Brazilian shops; you can leave it out for a richer, softer paçoca. Under-roasting the peanuts is the usual pitfall: pale peanuts give a raw, beany taste. Chef's tip: grind the mixture only until it just starts to clump; if it turns to butter, it will not hold a crumbly shape.
- Total time
- 20 min
- Difficulty
- easy
- Serves
- 16
Ingredients
- 14 oz raw peanutsskinned
- 5 ½ oz sugar
- 2 ⅛ oz fine cassava meal (farinha de mandioca fina)naturally gluten free; sold in Brazilian shops
- ½ tsp salt
Shop this recipe on Amazon
What you'll need
Spices & pantry
Links open Amazon in a new tab. As an Amazon Associate, WhatToEat.Today earns from qualifying purchases.
Method
0/6 doneStep 1: Toast 14 oz raw peanuts in a dry frying pan over a medium heat, stirring often, for 8–10 minutes, until golden and fragrant all the way through (cut one to check).
10 minStep 2: Tip onto a plate and cool for 10 minutes; warm peanuts turn into butter in the processor.
Step 3: Pulse the peanuts in a food processor in short bursts until they look like fine sand.
Step 4: Add 5 ½ oz sugar, 2 ⅛ oz fine cassava meal (farinha de mandioca fina) and ½ tsp salt and pulse again until the mixture looks like damp crumbs and holds together when squeezed.
Step 5: Press the mixture firmly into a small glass, a shot glass or a ring mould to make 16 rounds about 2 cm thick, and push each out with your thumb. Or press into a lined 15 cm tin and cut into squares.
Step 6: Let them firm up for 30 minutes before wrapping. Keep in an airtight tin for up to 3 weeks.
Nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 150 kcal
- Protein
- 6 g
- Carbs
- 14 g
- Fat
- 8 g
- Fibre
- 2 g
Nutrition values are estimates.
KrazyBadal
Good to know
- How long does paçoca take?
- About 20 minutes in total: 10 minutes to prepare and 10 minutes to cook.
- How many people does it serve?
- 16 as written. Change the servings above the ingredients and every amount scales to match.
- Is it vegan?
- Yes. It has no meat, fish, dairy or eggs.
- Is it gluten free?
- Yes, as written. Check the labels on stock, sauces and spice mixes, which sometimes contain gluten.
- What can I use instead of sugar?
- Caster sugar, same amount.
Reviews
No reviews yet. Be the first to cook it.
Rate this recipe
Sign in to rate and review this recipe.
You might also like
Kartoshka cakeCocoa and cake crumb truffles
Soviet cafés and school canteens sold these knobbly brown 'potatoes' for a few kopecks, and they began as a thrifty way to use up sponge and biscuit trimmings at the bakery. Crumbs are bound with butter and sweetened condensed milk, flavoured with cocoa and vanilla, shaped into little potatoes, rolled in cocoa and finished with two dabs of pale butter cream for the sprouts. They are fudgy and dense like a brownie truffle, need no oven, and children love making them. Traditional bakers added a spoonful of rum, an optional extra for adult batches only; this version is alcohol-free with vanilla. The usual slip is coarse crumbs, which make the potatoes crack, so blitz them as fine as sand. Chef's tip: chill the shaped potatoes for at least 20 minutes so they hold their shape and slice cleanly.
Russian
Undu walaluFried urad dal rings in treacle
Walalu means bangles, and these dark, sticky rings of fried urad dal soaked in kithul treacle are a sweet that Sinhala families bring out for Avurudu and for special almsgivings, often made in large batches by an aunt known for her steady hand. A thick, fluffy paste of ground black gram is piped into loops and fried until crisp, then plunged straight into warm treacle, so the rings stay crunchy on the outside while drinking up the syrup. They taste a little like a darker, smokier jalebi, with a toffee finish from the palm treacle. Watery batter is what ruins them; it spreads into flat blobs, so grind the soaked dal with as little water as possible and beat it until light. This recipe uses no asafoetida, so it is naturally gluten free. Chef's tip: pipe the rings onto small squares of baking paper and lower them into the oil paper and all; the paper peels away in seconds.
Sri Lankan
Baklava
The famous layered pastry: crisp sheets of buttered fillo sandwich a filling of almonds, pistachios and cashews spiced with cinnamon, cardamom and saffron. After baking, the hot baklava is soaked in a syrup of sugar, honey, lemon, rose and cardamom and decorated with almond and pistachio flakes. Cut into 40 diamonds; serve with fresh cream or ice cream.