In December we decided to thrown an impromptu holiday drinks gathering, and I wanted to incorporate some new offerings beyond my standard party dips. Seemingly the hunger induced from my increased running the past few months led my thoughts toward the fattiest options, with one – brie en croute – occupying my mind nonstop once I thought of it.
The only question I then had to answer (besides how to make a brie en croute) was sweet or savory? I sought some opinions and decided to go savory, with the most compelling internet approaches involving sundried tomatoes and capers. I ultimately improvised a "recipe" that included chopped sundried tomatoes, capers, and parsley, stuffed between a horizontally cut 8 oz. brie wheel like a sandwich filling.
The first time I made this brie (yes, I made it twice), I cut out some decorative puff pastry pieces and simply folded up one sheet of thawed frozen puff pastry on top of the brie wheel, pushing the edges into each other to hold them together. I did not use egg wash. This did NOT work, and the baked puff pastry slowly unraveled itself so it was a mess out of the oven. A very, very tasty mess, but an unattractive one.
The second time I made brie en croute, I used egg wash to bind the pastry edges to each other AND flipped the pastry over, so that the edges were on the bottom of the wheel. That meant no spillage or opening, which was great, but the doubled up pastry on the bottom of the baking sheet meant that the pastry didn't completely evenly cook and was slightly raw on the underside.
So in the future, I may follow another approach I read online to cut the pastry sheet to cover just the top and sides of the brie wheel and not have any pastry on the bottom, where it won't cook evenly.
But regardless of approach, stuffing fillings into a brie wheel and covering with puff pastry is delicious, incredibly fast (5 minutes of work, 25 minutes of baking in 375 degree oven, 15 minutes of cooling). I will definitely be making this again and again for future winter parties!
Leave a Reply