Brie En Croute Bites

J. and I spent a couple of hours on Sunday making a dinners for the rest of the week and it was fun getting adventurous with some homemade cooking.  I'm talking lasagna that must have been 15 pounds when assembled, and I used up our egg supply making bacon and cheese quiches.  If you've got extra eggs, quiche is a perfect way to use them up because you can bake them ahead of time and then freeze them.  Then just thaw and pop in the microwave or oven for a quick meal.

It's been awhile since I posted a recipe here, so I thought I would share the recipe for the snackies that we made to munch on while we were cooking.  If you've ever had brie en croute, you know that it's yummy, and gooey, and oozey and messy.  When you cut into it, it goes everywhere.  So why not make a "brie bite" that's a much more manageable finger-food size?

Heck yeah......

Brie En Croute Bites

(makes 24 small servings)

 

Ingredients

• 2 sheet puff pastry, thawed in the frig before use
• Filling (optional):  blackberry jam (or apple butter, apple pie filling, whatever)
• 1 brick of brie cheese

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°.
2. On a lightly floured surface, layout the puff pastry dough and cut each sheet into 9 even-sized squares.
3. Leaving the rind on the cheese, cut the brie into 1/2" to 3/4" cubes and place one cube in the middle of each dough square.
4. Optional:  The brie is great by itself.  But I find that the taste of the cheese is enhanced by fruit.  You can be creative here and use a 1/2 teaspoon of jam, jelly, pie filling, fresh fruits, dried fruit, or whatever you want on top of each brie cube.  Be creative! 
5. Pull the sides (not the corners) up and box in the cheese.
6. Then pull the corners up toward the middle so that all the insides are contained.
7. Pinch the corners together to seal them and then give it a little twist and press it down (to form a top.)
8. of the pastry up and around the brie/jam/cranberries and seal with a twist.
9. Bake until the pastry is puffed and golden (about 12-15 minutes).

Notes: 

• Don't worry about leaving the rind on.  You won't even know it's there.
• Pillsbury Crescent Rolls also work for this recipe, but they can be a little harder to get wrapped up. Personally, I really like the flakiness of the puff pastry.
• These are better when they're warm, as the cheese sets up again as it cools.  You can pop them in the microwave if they start to firm up.
• For  traditional brie en croute taste, add dried cranberries.

We'd never tried brie before, and these were really quite yummy.  Brie does have a little pungency to it but I didn't find it overbearing and the blackberry jelly mellowed it out.  In fact, it was sometimes a little difficult to taste the brie but you couldn't miss it's oh-so-good gooey cheesiness.

Let me know if you try these!

I've shared this recipe with this week's Homestead Barn Hop. You can find all kinds of stuff over at the Hop, so go check it out!