This is a must-know appetizer, so impressive and easy to pull together. Make baked brie for an elegant cocktail party or a quiet party of a family few. Always festive, fun, delectable. And easy! Other favorite jams for this are apricot or sweet pepper jalepeno.
1sleevepuff pastry, thawed 30 minutes in the box, at room temperature
1/2cupfig jam or other favorite flavor
18 oz.wheel of brie, double or triple cream
1eggwell-beaten with a teaspoon of water
Instructions
Heat the oven to 375°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Unwrap and unfold the thawed puff pastry. If using all-butter puff pastry, roll the pastry to 1/4-inch thickness. Carefully lay the pastry on the parchment lined pan. Cut away a strip of pastry to fit the size of your cookie cutter for decoration, if using.
Dollop half of the jam in the center of the pastry and spread to a circle about the size of the brie wheel. Lay the brie over top, and spread the rest of the jam on top of the brie.
Take one corner of the dough and pull it up and over the brie. Repeat with the remaining three corners, pressing the dough down to seal it on top.
Flip the pastry-brie package over.
Use a cookie cutter to cut a shape out of the spare piece of pastry. Lay the shape on top of the package.
Brush the pastry top and sides with egg wash.
Bake for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve immediately.
Notes
There are generally two types of frozen puff pastry readily available: Darfour, fabulous all-butter puff pastry that I find at Whole Foods or specialty markets. Or Pepperidge Farm, made with oil and found in the “frozen novelties” section of pretty much every grocery store. The Darfour is great because, well, butter. The Pepperidge Farm is great for this recipe because it does not release so much oil as it bakes as the Darfour does. It’s cleaner.Take care not to leave the puff pastry out longer than required or it will get too soft to work with.Try many sweet variations to compliment the creamy brie: maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, or cranberry sauce during the holiday season--any of these can replace the jam inside the puff pastry brie assembly.An alternative to store-bought puff pastry is crescent roll dough, which you can find in the refrigerator case at the grocery store. Simply skip the thawing step and roll the crescent dough out as a sheet rather than separating into crescent triangles.