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Paçoca
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
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What you'll need
Spices & pantry
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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.
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