To say I use Pinterest a lot would be a complete understatement. For me, it’s not only a wish list tracker, but an extension of my memory and an organizable recommendations system for the lifestyle I aspire to have or make “someday”.
When looking for a perfect dessert to a dinner party I hosted over Christmas, I wanted to pair down the prep time to allow me to eat with my guests as well as have a warm fresh dessert. Via a Pinterest query I stumbled upon a recipe for cranberry brie bites that is perfect as an appetizer, or dessert course and takes roughly around 25 minutes total to make.
Instead of using cranberry which I felt was too cliche for a holiday dinner, I really wanted to use a fig jam but the market ran out and I settled on Apricot as a decent pairing for warm brie. Honestly most jams go well with brie. Also adjusted the baking time on the recipe since the puff pastry was still raw-ish with the original recipe timing.
Ingredients
- 1 package (17 1/4 ounces) frozen puff pastry, thawed
- 1/2 lb Brie cheese
- 1 cup of jam, almost any flavor
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- With a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut the sheets into approximately 3 inch x 3 inch squares.
Press each square into a muffin cavity. The puff pastry should make about 12 pieces perfect for lining a cupcake tin. - Cube the cheese – about a 3/4 inch cube for each. Place a cube of brie in the center of each puff pastry square. Top the brie with a small dollop (about 2 tsp) of jam. Don’t put a ton of jam as we made the mistake of otherwise the puff pastry will push out all your fillings.
- Bake about 15-20 minutes or until puff pastry corners are toasted lightly brown.
- Let cool 5 minutes before serving
Jam Brie Tartlets – Pastry dough in the cupcake tin
Jam Brie Tartlets – Baked to perfection
Here are the variations
Taught Latika this recipe during an impromptu cooking night and she MacGyver-ed (this reference super dates me, but hell it’s the only one that captures the magic that she did) the recipe in my kitchen with items found in my fridge. It was amazing, and I realized then she has a great sense of what would pair well, making both a sautéed fruit topper and fresh blueberry + cranberry lime infused syrup sauce for use instead of and in addition to the jam.
Sautéed Fruit Topper – This ends up going really well with the jam, as jam alone seems to be more sweet and this gives a little tartness to the tartlets
- Instead of just the apricot jam, we had some left over slices of nectarine which was diced into half centimeter pieces.
- Using a tablespoon of coconut oil, sautee the fruit so that it’s slightly tender then add in some lemon juice to up the acidity.
Blueberry Lime Cranberry Reduction – This is super tasty instead of the store bought jam.
- In a sauce pot toss in half mini crate of left over blueberries
- Then add a cup of sous vide cranberry lime syrup
- Simmer over medium heat gently squishing the berries until liquid is reduced to a thicker jam like consistency while stirring so that the sauce doesn’t burn.
- Spoon 1 tbs of the sauce into each cup a top the brie.
When you over-do the jam mixture it spills over like this:
Jam Brie Tartlets – Fail. Way to much jamming.
But I ended up breaking off the edges and the core of the brie tartlets were still tasty.
Another check, off my infinite to-do list on Pinterest. Hope you enjoy it! The left overs I brought my coworkers the next day sold like hotcakes.
