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Baked Brie cheese can be a one-man show when it comes to a holiday cheese offering. Decked with holiday trimmings and flavors, it's a perfect dish for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It can become a real showstopper, precluding the need for a multi-component cheese board, or it can even be an elegant, plated starter course unto itself.

Chef Herve Guillard, Director of Education and Dean of Students at the 51�Թ�'s Los Angeles Campus, loves baked Brie.

“A lot of people enjoy it,” Chef Herve says. “It's mild enough without being overpowering, and it can be accommodated in a lot of different ways.”

If you’re considering adding a baked Brie to your holiday spread this year, Chef Herve shares a recipe and his best tips for making it a dish that your friends and family will request year after year.

What is The Best Cheese for Baked Brie?

As a cheese professional, I am always an advocate for a high quality, artisanal bloomy rind cheese over a commercial Brie on a cheese plate. Baked Brie doesn’t necessarily require this, however, which can also make it an affordable cheese option during the financial crunch of the holiday season.

“I wouldn't spend too much money on a Brie that you're going to bake, because most of the time you're going to add extra stuff to it,” Chef Herve says. “I would recommend getting something higher quality to eat on a cheese platter, but for baking, a more commercial quality Brie would be fine. My go-to is from Sam's Club or Costco. They have big wheels that look impressive and are very affordable.”

Read more:  Understanding Cheese Rinds

Adorning Your Baked Brie

Baked Brie is also an extremely versatile option as a holiday dish. It can be baked with or without being encased in a dough of some kind, it can be prepared sweet or savory, and you can include any additions to the baked Brie on the side, under the crust of the wrapping, or even in the middle of the cheese. Since Brie has a mild flavor and can be a blank slate, and since it plays well with a number of other components, it’s also an opportunity to show off your culinary creativity.

“Baked Brie is everywhere, so you have to make it your own,” Chef Herve says.

Though the dish itself is very customizable, Chef Herve does have some go-to methods to dress up a baked Brie recipe for maximum impact.

“My favorite dough for wrapping baked Brie is definitely puff pastry. It marries well with it,” he says.

The pairing works so well because both the puff pastry and the cheese bring a buttery characteristic to the table. Phyllo dough is a flakier alternative to puff pastry, and for a more advanced culinary technique, you can try wrapping your Brie in brioche or another bread dough.

The pastry wrapping is only one of the many fun flavor elements you can experiment with when making baked Brie, however.

“I would definitely include a flavoring,” Chef Herve says. “Any kind of herbs can be finely chopped and put on top before wrapping it. I also like to cut the Brie in half [crosswise] and put in some kind of pre-cooked filling — cranberry relish is perfect for the holidays.”

On the savory side, Chef Herve recommends caramelized onions or finely ground, sautéed mushrooms, as in a mushroom duxelles.

For a big move with massive crowd appeal, “you could even do a baked Brie bar,” Chef Herve says, “with several different toppings on the side for guests to choose their own flavors.”

Besides the options mentioned above, Brie also has many other favorable pairing components that can be incorporated into your final dish: nuts, honey, fresh and dried fruits of all kinds, and even chocolate for a dessert preparation.

Related Read:  Understanding Cheese Pairings

Best Practices for Baked Brie

Baked Brie is not necessarily a complicated dish to prepare, but Chef Herve recommends some best practices to avoid a less-than-perfect outcome.

First, if you’re planning to wrap your Brie in dough, make sure to cut or roll it in a way that fits the wheel you’re working with.

“I like to actually cut a circle, and then wrap the Brie so that you can seal the edges underneath without having too much crust on the bottom,” he says.

Using two squares of conventional puff pastry without cutting them leaves three layers of crust on the bottom, due to the sheets overlapping. Chef Herve strongly recommends cutting them and minimizing overlap to make sure your final product isn't too crusty.

When preparing the Brie, you want the seam of the pastry to be on the bottom of the cheese wheel for the best look. Any leftover pastry scraps from cutting the pastry to fit the Brie can be used for garnish on top, cut into leaves or other festive shapes.

Finally, make sure your oven is hot.

“The crust should be nice and crusty and flaky,” Chef Herve says. “A hot oven is the best way to get that browning — you want it to be 400 degrees. If the oven is too low, especially if you use puff pastry, then it just melts away.”

Commercial Brie will become soft and gooey in the high heat, but it won’t slither out completely from within your crust.

“The Brie itself is going to melt and marry the flavors of whatever you choose to put in it,” Chef Herve says.

The final dish is a warm, comforting, delicious and decidedly memorable holiday treat. Here's how to make it.

Recipe

Baked Brie Cheese Recipe

Yields one wheel of baked Brie, enough for 8 guests as an appetizer

Ingredients

• 1 wheel Brie cheese
• Filling, if desired. (Ideas include: herbs of choice, caramelized onions, chopped bacon, sautéed mushrooms, cranberry sauce or fruit jam)
• 2 sheets store-bought or homemade puff pastry dough
• 2 eggs
• Water or milk (for egg wash)

Directions

1. Open and prepare the cheese. If adding a filling inside the cheese, carefully cut the wheel in half crosswise, like a burger bun.
2. Add filling across the sliced cheese, if applicable.
3. Prepare the egg wash by beating two eggs with a water or milk, as needed, to thin.
4. Lay the puff pastry flat and roll out with a rolling pin, if needed. Brush edges of the puff pastry with egg wash. Each sheet should cover the flat side of the brie with some overlap hanging over the sides. Cut off excess puff pastry and save for decoration.
5. Place Brie on one sheet of puff pastry. Fold up puff pastry sides around bottom of the cheese. Repeat on the top of the cheese with the other sheet of pastry.
6. Smooth sides of the puff pastry and create decorations on top of cheese using the extra scraps. You can also score the top of the puff pastry-wrapped cheese with a sharp knife for decoration.
7. Place pastry-wrapped cheese in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes before baking to firm up.
8. Preheat oven to 400 °F.
9. Once brie has firmed in the fridge, place on parchment paper-lined sheet pan. Brush all over with the egg wash. Place in oven.
10. Bake until the cheese is completely cooked through and the puff pastry is dark brown, about 35 to 40 minutes.
11. Let cool slightly before serving. Serve with bread, fruit and crackers for dipping.

Chef's note: If one sheet of your puff pastry is large enough to cover the entire wheel of cheese, you can do so instead of using two sheets. Just make sure the seam side is on the bottom of the cheese.