Colombian Cheese Bread (Pandebono), gluten-free in 35 minutes

TasteAtlas ranked pandebono the fourth-best bread in the world, and once you’ve had one warm from the oven it’s easy to see why. Colombian cheese bread is a small, golden, gluten-free roll, soft and slightly chewy inside, made from cassava starch and salty cheese with no wheat and no yeast. It bakes in under 20 minutes and has exactly one tricky ingredient, which this recipe will help you source.

How do you make pandebono? Mix sifted sour cassava starch with corn starch, sugar, grated salty cheese, and an egg. Add warm milk a tablespoon at a time until a dough forms. Roll 35-40 g balls and bake at 220-230°C (425-450°F) for 15-18 minutes. Makes 12 in 35 minutes.

What pandebono is, and where it comes from

Pandebono traces to the Hacienda El Bono, on the old road between Cali and Buenaventura, where a cook named Genoveva is said to have created it to make the traditional mule-drivers’ bread more nourishing — adding cassava starch, corn, and cheese. It’s one of Colombia’s amasijos, the gluten-free breads built on corn or cassava starch rather than wheat, a tradition going back to colonial convents where nuns baked with the starches they had on hand. At about 145 calories each and naturally gluten-free, pandebono has become a favorite well beyond Colombia.

The sour starch, the ingredient that decides everything

This is the 1 technical point no recipe explains well, and it decides if your pandebono rises tall or comes out flat.

Sour cassava starch (fermented). The starch is fermented and sun-dried. Fermentation produces acids that modify the starch so that, at high heat it expands into pandebono’s signature airy texture. It’s the natural equivalent of yeast, without a proofing step.

Sweet cassava starch (unfermented). Native starch with no fermentation. It has none of the rise, so baked it makes a dense dough with no spring.

How to find it. Outside Colombia, the easiest source is the Brazilian product polvilho azedo, which is exactly the same thing, sold in Latin groceries and online. (“Azedo” means sour; “doce” means sweet, so avoid polvilho doce.) Sour starch has a faintly acidic smell; sweet starch has none. Don’t confuse cassava starch with masarepa, the precooked corn flour used for Colombian arepas; different plant, different job.

The cheese, and real substitutes

Queso costeño is white, firm, salty, and doesn’t fully melt when baked, and all three properties matter. Its firmness lets it grate and spread evenly without turning to paste; its saltiness means pandebono needs no added salt; and because it doesn’t fully melt, it leaves little points of texture inside the baked roll.

Outside Colombia, well-drained and pressed feta is the closest substitute. Unsalted Latin queso fresco is the next best. Mozzarella alone doesn’t work, being too wet and melting completely. Grate about 250 g, and remember the cheese carries the salt for the whole recipe.

The oven, 220-230°C and no lower

Pandebono bakes at 220-230°C (425-450°F), much hotter than most breads. That heat is what triggers the sour starch to expand in the first few minutes. At 180°C (350°F) it won’t rise properly, coming out flat with the texture of a hard cookie instead of the airy crumb you want.

The oven must be fully preheated, because pandebono needs the immediate blast of heat the moment it goes in. If the oven is still warming, the first minutes are wasted with no expansion and the result is flatter. Give it at least 20 minutes to come up to temperature.

Fitting it to your kitchen

• If you can’t find sour cassava starch — there’s no functional substitute for the same result; Brazilian polvilho azedo is identical and easier to find abroad
• If you can’t find queso costeño — well-drained feta in the same amount; cut the salt if the feta is very salty
• If your pandebono comes out flat — the starch was sweet instead of sour, or the oven wasn’t hot enough
• If the dough cracks when you roll balls — add warm milk a tablespoon at a time until it folds without breaking
• If you’re cooking for 24 — double it; the baking time doesn’t change

What ruins pandebono

Sweet starch instead of sour. The pandebono comes out flat and dense, since only fermented starch gives the airy texture. Two different products despite the similar name.

A low oven. At 180°C (350°F) pandebono won’t expand. It needs 220-230°C (425-450°F) from the first second.

Overworking the dough. Pandebono dough is mixed the minimum needed to combine, about 30-40 seconds. Long kneading develops the starch differently and makes the rolls tougher.

Too much milk. Wet dough spreads instead of rising. Add milk a tablespoon at a time until the dough just comes together.

Eating them cold. Pandebono loses its texture completely as it cools; the airy, soft crumb lasts less than 30 minutes out of the oven.

What to serve it with

At about 145 calories each, 2 or 3 with a hot drink make breakfast. The classic pairing is hot chocolate or black coffee, the most common breakfast in the Valle del Cauca, and hot aguapanela too. For a spread of Colombian gluten-free breads and breakfast bites, set pandebono next to its crisp cousin the cassava bread (pandeyuca), the fried buñuelos, or the dry-pan cheese arepas, and finish with a bowl of mazamorra.

Nutrition

Per pandebono (of 12): about 145 kcal, 18 g carbohydrate, 6 g protein, 6 g fat (3 g saturated), 280 mg sodium. They’re naturally gluten-free, just cassava and corn starch with no wheat, and the protein comes mostly from the cheese.

There’s no pandebono in Venezuela. We have pan de queso, close to Brazilian pão de queijo, made with cassava starch, but the Colombian version with queso costeño and sour starch is its own thing. Pandebono was one of the first Colombian foods I adopted completely. Warm from the oven with hot chocolate, it’s one of the most satisfying breakfasts I know. — Josnaisis.