Cheeses for baking and pastries

Cheese has been baked into bread and pastry for as long as both have existed. Georgia's khachapuri, Turkey's börek, Greece's tiropita, Brazil's pão de queijo, Colombia's pandebono, the English cheese scone, the French gougère and Odisha's chhena poda all bake cheese into something golden and new. Baking concentrates a cheese's flavour and browns it, adding notes of toast and caramel.

Cheese breads

Pão de queijo, from Minas Gerais in Brazil, mixes cassava starch with milk, eggs and grated cheese, traditionally the local queijo Minas, into small, chewy rolls. Colombia's pandebono and Paraguay's chipa are close cousins made with cassava or corn. Georgia's khachapuri is the national bread, and each region has its own: round Imeretian khachapuri, the boat-shaped Adjarian kind, and Megrelian khachapuri with extra cheese baked on top.

Pastries

Börek and tiropita wrap white cheese in thin sheets of yufka or filo, and the Balkan banitsa and gibanica layer cheese and egg between them. Gougères, from Burgundy, are choux puffs baked with Gruyère or Comté. Cheese scones and cheese straws are British tea-time bakes made with mature cheddar. Polish sernik and German Käsekuchen bake twaróg and quark into cheesecake, and Italy's pastiera fills pastry with ricotta and cooked wheat for Easter.

Baked Indian sweets

Chhena poda, from Odisha, is perhaps India's best-known baked cheese: fresh chhena kneaded with sugar, semolina and cardamom and baked slowly, traditionally over a wood fire, until the outside caramelises. Its name means burnt cheese. Baked rasgulla and baked sandesh, made in ovens, are newer variations from Bengal. Bakeries in Indian cities also sell cheese buns and cheese straws, often made with processed cheese.

Worth knowing

Khachapuri: Georgian cheese bread
Börek: Turkish pastry filled with white cheese
Tiropita: Greek cheese pie in filo
Pão de queijo: Chewy cheese rolls of Brazil
Pandebono: Colombian cheese bread
Gougère: Burgundian choux puffs with Gruyère
Banitsa: Bulgarian layered cheese pastry
Chhena poda: Baked cheese sweet of Odisha

Sources and further reading

About this page

Original text by the EveryCheese desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Customs are described as tradition, not as advice. If we have something wrong, tell us.

Baking and pastries on EveryCheese

The cheeses written up so far, best known first.