Looking for something fabulous to serve your family and friends over the Holidays?
Say Cheese!
I don’t know about you but cheese just about always makes me smile, and this recipe has the perfect balance of salty and sweet, creamy and crunchy, and absolute melt in your mouth DELICIOUS.
Start by taking a wheel of brie cheese and cut the rind from the top layer only. The purpose of removing the rind is so the ingredients stick to the cheese and the honey will melt into the cheese during the baking process. There is quite the debate between Brie cheese enthusiasts on whether or not you can eat the rind.
The answer: YES, you CAN eat the rind. The rind is just a light layer of mold and the flavor will vary from cheese to cheese.
My answer: If I’m eating brie straight out of the fridge I generally always remove the paper-like mold rind due more to the texture than taste. If I’m baking the brie, I remove the top but leave the rest of the rind intact. This helps it keep its shape while baking and the rind also softens quite a bit while baking making the texture more palatable.
Back to the brie… brie cheese is sticky which makes the rind removal difficult. I have found that if you pop it into the freezer for 15 minutes before cutting it makes this process much easier.
Place the brie in a greased oven safe baking dish. Pour the honey over the top, sprinkle on the pistachios (roughly chopped), and toss on 1 tablespoon of chopped sage. I didn’t have an oven safe dish when I made this batch, so I lined a baking sheet with tin foil. It did the trick but remember: brie is such a soft cheese, heating just a few minutes too long can equal a brie lake in the bottom of your oven. 😉
Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. You can also wrap the wheel in a sheet of puffed pasty, sealing all edges. Bake at 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees.
This soft deliciously mild cheese is so versatile, so you can easily experiment with different ingredients. Try replacing the honey with fig preserves and the sage with rosemary!
Pour yourself a nice glass of wine, slice some baguettes, and SAY CHEESE!
Sweet & Savory Baked Brie
Ingredients
- 1 wheel of brie cheese
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 1 tablespoon chopped sage
- 1/2 cup chopped pistachio nuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cut top of rind from brie leaving the sides and bottom intact.
- Place brie in an oven safe bowl.
- Pour honey over the top.
- Give pistachio nuts a quick rough chop and sprinkle over honey.
- Add chopped sage to top.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes.
- Serve with baguette-style bread or crackers.
Looks delicious! I always eat the rind, no matter how I’m eating it… 🙂
I think I’ll try this when I go to my mom’s later this month – seems super easy and still kinda fancy, haha!
Thank you for all the background info about brie- and the tip for easy removal of the rind!