Hey you little party
animal, if you have just been asked to bring an appetizer to your
next shindig, you should, in your heart, be saying right now “move
over Brie en Croute, these mini versions are where it’s at.”
Of course, I’m
not fancy or popular enough to make these divine baked Brie puff
pastry bites for an occasion like that (we ate them for after school
snack), but the fact that I’m kind of a boring little homebody
doesn’t stop me from tinkering around with my favorite
appetizer. Plus, let’s be serious, more for me, less for people
that require lots of small talk.
I love baked Brie with
my whole soul. I actually had an entire post dedicated to the making
of (step-by-steps even!) baked Brie in puff pastry. Like, the big
version. The one that’s wrapped up in a cute little package of
pastry and the wheel of Brie is baked to creamy, melty perfection.
Yeah, I did.
And then I burned it.
Really badly. As in, smoke detectors blaring and the smell of smoky,
greasy, bread and cheese permeating my house and hair for days. I
swore off baked Brie for at least a week. When I went to recreate it,
perhaps I was still traumatized, I decided to go for a finger food
route — a mini appetizer, if you will.
And, all I can say is,
I’m not sure I’ll ever go back. These magnificent little
bites have just the right amount of pastry-to-Brie ratio and that
cheese. Oh, that cheese. It’s downright decadent with the
little touch of raspberry jam and sprinkle of Dijoned brown sugar.
Lightly grease a 24-cup mini
muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray and set aside. Preheat the
oven to 375 degrees F (for darker coated pans, consider reducing the
temperature to 350 degrees).
Dust the counter with a light
coating of flour and gently press the sheet of puff pastry out with
your hands until it is about 12X12. You aren't really thinning it
out as much as getting it into an even thickness throughout and
flattening just slightly.
Using a knife or pizza wheel, cut
the puff pastry into 25 equal pieces (five strips one way, five
strips the other way). Press one square lightly into each muffin
cup. You'll have one leftover square — toss or bake on its
own.
Bake the puff pastry for about 8-9
minutes until lightly golden and puffed up.
Remove from the oven and using the
rounded, blunt edge of a spoon or spatula (or your finger), press
the pastry down in the middle so it is no longer puffed up.
Cut the Brie into 24 1/2-inch or
so cubes. If you're working with the rounded edge of a wheel of
cheese, combine two smaller pieces, if needed.
Divide the raspberry jam evenly
among the pastry cups — lightly warm the jam if it is too
thick to drizzle in evenly. Place a piece of Brie on top of the jam.
Mix together the brown sugar and
Dijon and sprinkle evenly over the cheese. Return to the oven for
about 4-6 minutes to let the cheese melt (watch carefully so the
puff pastry doesn't burn).
Serve immediately (these are
divine warm but we love them at room temperature too).
Melanie Gunnell is a food-loving, chocolate-obsessed mom who has a desperate need to share
her favorite tried-and-true recipes with the world. In a past life she graduated from Brigham
Young University with a degree in public health, but for the past ten years, stay-at-home
motherhood has been her job along with blogging-from-home for the past five.
She resides in the brilliantly cold tundra of Northern Minnesota with her husband and their brood
of five children: four boys and one tiny, bossy girl. Dark chocolate (particularly the act of
shoving chocolate chips in her mouth whilst hiding in the pantry) is her coping skill of choice for
both the never-ending winters and the never-ending wrestling matches in her front room.