Brie Puff Pastry Bites

5 from 1 vote

This is probably the easiest Christmas nibble you can make but with the most impressive results. These are melty Brie Puff Pastry Bites. Golden puff pastry with melted, oozey Brie and sweet cranberry sauce, all in one little mouthful.

Prep Time10

Cook Time20

Total Time30

Course: Christmas

Cuisine: British

Servings: bites

Author: Margie Nomura

Ingredients

1 sheet of puff pastry
7 oz Brie chopped into little chunks
5.25 oz cranberry sauce about generous 1/2 cup
1 egg
Chives to garnish

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 392°F (200°C/180°C fan).
Roll out the puff pastry on the parchment paper that typically comes in the pack. Cut into 16 squares. Press each square into a mini muffin pan. The edges will fold over one another but this is fine, it creates texture and looks nice once all puffed up so don't worry about being too neat.
Place one piece of Brie in each puff pastry cup.
Add 1 teaspoon of cranberry sauce to each, on top of the Brie.
Beat 1 egg until mixed then use a pastry brush to smooth egg over the pastry.
Bake for 20 minutes until the Brie is melted and the pastry is golden and puffed up. Top with chopped chives once out of the oven.

Notes

Make-ahead and storage

To Store: Keep leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. You can reheat the bites in a mini muffin pan or on a baking sheet at 355°F (180°C/160°C fan) for around 10 minutes until hot all the way through.

To Freeze: After baking and cooling the bites completely, arrange them in a single layer on a baking sheet and freeze until firm. You can then transfer the frozen bites to an airtight container or a freezer bag and store for up to 2 months. To reheat, bake them directly from frozen at 355°F (180°C/160°C fan) until warmed through, around 15-20 minutes.

To make-ahead: You can fully assemble the Brie bites in the muffin tin and pop them in the fridge, unbaked, for up to 3 days. Then bake when ready.

More quick tips

Cranberry sauce: You could also use fig jam, raspberry jam, apricot jam, marmalade, or redcurrant jam. Or go more savory and use an onion chutney, tomato chutney, or chili jam.

Brie: Camembert would also work very well here. You could try with goat cheese too. Look for one with a rind so that it should melt in the same way as Brie.

Additions: Sprinkle some roughly chopped walnuts or pecans over around halfway through baking the bites so that they melt into the topping and stay stuck down. You could also decorate them after but I find that the nuts just slide off before you have a bite. I also like garnish these bites sometimes with a drizzle of honey once out of the oven. This would be really good if you used goat cheese. Otherwise, once out of the oven, some thyme or rosemary leaves are a good alternative to the chives.

Add meat: If you like, add some prosciutto or pancetta too. A few pieces of crispy cooked pancetta between the Brie and the cranberry sauce would be good. Or how about some crispy prosciutto on top? Lay a few slices of prosciutto on a baking sheet and bake at 428°F (220°C/200°C fan) for around 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to firm up. Then crack into shards and scatter on top to add a salty bite.

Mini muffin pan: If you don't have a mini muffin pan, you could make these in a regular sized muffin pan. They will be bigger and so less bite-sized but they would work and be delicious. Just adapt the size of the puff pastry squares to fit. Likewise, if your muffin pan is really mini, just make smaller squares of pastry. You'll end up with more bites in the end.

Nutrition