Chef Juliana
Biscoito de Polvilho Assado
You think this is bakery magic. It isn't. Scald sour cassava starch, beat in eggs, pipe rings, and let a hot oven crack them into crisp, hollow biscuits.
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Sequilho de Polvilho
Created by
You don't need a bakery hand for sequilho. You need soft butter, polvilho doce, a steady spoon, and the patience to stop baking before the cookies turn hard.
Pastries & Cookies
Brazilian
Comfort Food
Make Ahead
Batch Cooking
25 min
Active Time
18 min cook•43 min total
Yield50 small cookies
You look at a tray of tiny piped cookies and think, isso não é pra mim. Too delicate, too pretty, too much chance for humiliation. Anota aí: delicacy is not a gift. It's a dough that was mixed properly and baked only until it had the sense to set.
I like sequilho because it sits in the Brazilian kitchen the way a good cake does. Not dinner, no. But it belongs near the everyday plate, after the rice, beans, an egg or meat, and something green have solved the meal. A little cookie with coffee is not a performance. It's comida de verdade when you make it from butter, egg, sugar, and polvilho doce, not from a packet pretending to be care.
The method is small but exact. Cream the butter and sugar until pale so the cookie starts light. Add the egg and mix until glossy so the fat and liquid stop fighting each other. Work in the polvilho until the dough is soft enough to pipe but firm enough to hold its ridges. Bake pale, not gold, because sequilho should melt before you finish chewing.
Cozinhar não é dom, é um aprendizado. This is one of those receitas que funcionam when you respect the ponto. And if your first squiggles come out crooked, good. Mine did too. Crooked cookies still disappear.
Sequilhos are small dry cookies found across Brazil, often made with starches such as polvilho or cornstarch and served with coffee in home kitchens and bakeries. Slow Food Brasil has described sequilho de polvilho as part of Brazilian food patrimony, tied to cassava starch and to the long habit of turning local starch into everyday snacks. Regional versions vary in shape, fat, and flavoring, but the shared idea is the same: a pale, tender cookie that crumbles and melts rather than snaps.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
unsalted butter
Quantity
1/2 cup
softened
granulated sugar
Quantity
1/2 cup
egg
Quantity
1 large
at room temperature
vanilla extract (optional)
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
polvilho doce (sweet cassava starch)
Quantity
2 1/2 cups
fine salt
Quantity
1/4 teaspoon
milk (optional)
Quantity
1 to 2 tablespoons
only if needed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| unsalted buttersoftened | 1/2 cup |
| granulated sugar | 1/2 cup |
| eggat room temperature | 1 large |
| vanilla extract (optional) | 1/2 teaspoon |
| polvilho doce (sweet cassava starch) | 2 1/2 cups |
| fine salt | 1/4 teaspoon |
| milk (optional)only if needed | 1 to 2 tablespoons |
Equipment Needed
- •2 light-colored baking sheets
- •Parchment paper
- •Medium mixing bowl
- •Sturdy spoon or hand mixer
- •Piping bag with medium star tip
- •Cooling rack
Instructions
- 1
Heat the oven
Heat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and line two baking sheets with parchment. Get the trays ready before the dough is mixed, because a soft butter dough behaves better when it goes straight from bowl to bag to oven. Wait too long in a warm kitchen and it slumps.
- 2
Cream the butter
Put the soft butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until the mixture turns pale, creamy, and a little fluffy, about 2 minutes by hand with a sturdy spoon or 1 minute with a mixer. This isn't fancy work. You're rubbing air into fat, and that air helps the sequilho bake tender instead of dense.
- 3
Add the egg
Add the egg and vanilla, if using, and beat until the mixture looks smooth and glossy. If it looks slightly split for a moment, keep mixing until it comes together. The egg needs to disappear into the butter before the polvilho goes in, or the dough gets patchy and some cookies bake sandy while others bake heavy.
- 4
Mix the starch
Whisk the polvilho doce with the salt, then add it to the butter mixture in three additions, stirring after each one. Stop when the dough is smooth, soft, and thick enough to hold a spoon mark. If it cracks and refuses to move, add milk 1 teaspoon at a time. Too much milk makes the cookies spread, so don't drown the poor thing.
- 5
Check the ponto
Press a little dough between your fingers. It should feel silky, not sticky, and it should hold together without crumbling. That's the ponto. If it sticks to your fingers, add 1 tablespoon more polvilho. If it breaks into dry crumbs, add a few drops of milk. Recipes that work still need your eyes, because your butter and your egg are not living in my kitchen.
- 6
Pipe the cookies
Spoon the dough into a piping bag fitted with a medium star tip and pipe small rings, squiggles, or short fingers about 1 inch long, leaving 1 inch between them. Keep them bite-sized. Small sequilhos bake through before they brown, which is how you get that melt-in-the-mouth texture instead of a hard little stone.
No piping bag? Roll small balls with your hands and press each one gently with a fork. It won't have the bakery ridges, but it will still be dinner-table real. A Tuesday is a Tuesday. - 7
Bake them pale
Bake one tray at a time for 14 to 18 minutes, until the cookies look dry on top and just barely beige underneath. Do not wait for golden tops. Golden sequilho is usually overbaked sequilho, and overbaked sequilho stops melting and starts arguing with your teeth.
- 8
Cool completely
Let the cookies sit on the hot tray for 10 minutes, then move them to a rack to cool completely. They are fragile while warm because the starch is still setting. Give them time and they'll firm up enough to handle while staying tender enough to melt.
Chef Tips
- •Buy polvilho doce, the sweet cassava starch, not polvilho azedo. The sour kind is beautiful for pão de queijo, but here it gives the wrong chew. Sequilho wants tenderness.
- •Use real butter if you can. Margarine will work, and many home kitchens use it, but the flavor is flatter and the dough can spread more. That's the honest cost.
- •Skip boxed cookie mixes and flavored powders. There are four real ingredients doing the job here. Let them.
- •If your kitchen is hot, chill the filled piping bag for 10 minutes before piping. The dough should be soft, not greasy.
- •Store the cookies in an airtight tin only after they're completely cool. Close them up warm and they'll sweat, soften, and lose that delicate dry crumb.
Advance Preparation
- •The dough can be mixed up to 24 hours ahead and refrigerated tightly covered. Let it soften at room temperature until pipeable before shaping.
- •Baked sequilhos keep for 7 days in an airtight tin at room temperature.
- •Pipe the cookies onto a tray and freeze until firm, then bag them for up to 1 month. Bake from frozen, adding 2 to 3 minutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 11g)
Calories
50 calories
Total Fat
2 g
Saturated Fat
1 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
1 g
Cholesterol
9 mg
Sodium
15 mg
Total Carbohydrates
7 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
2 g
Protein
0 g
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