Baked Brie with Puff Pastry and Cranberry — 💛♥️ Warm melted cheese, layered with cranberry sauce, and baked in flaky puff pastry is a crowd FAVORITE appetizer! Fast and EASY for you, IRRESISTIBLE for everyone else! It’s the PERFECT holiday appetizer for Thanksgiving, Christmas, holiday parties, or New Year’s Eve!
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Easy Baked Brie and Cranberry in Puff Pastry
Calling all cheese fanatics, this baked brie with puff pastry is the holiday appetizer recipe that you won’t be able to walk away from!
I am a huge fan of baked brie. I have three other recipes for baked brie on my site for it with a paired with various fruits including Baked Brie with Cranberries, Baked Brie with Currants, and Baked Brie with Balsamic Cherries.
But if you want to get your gooey melted cheese and flaky, crispy, warm bread all in one then you need to make this brie wrapped in puff pastry with a layer of cranberry sauce in the middle!
It’s pure comfort food and it’s also a crowd favorite appetizer recipe. People always love it and it’s a cinch to make and comes together quickly and with no fuss. That’s the best kind of appetizer!
Seriously all you need to do is slice a wheel of brie cheese in half, add cranberry sauce between the two halves, seal it up inside puff pastry, chill it, and bake if off.
I like to serve mine with crackers and slices of apples and pears.
No matter what you serve it with, this easy baked brie wrapped in puff pastry is sure to be a hit at your fall and winter events whether it’s a more casual get-together, before your big Thanksgiving or Christmas meals, or as something to nibble on at your New Year’s Eve party.
Ingredients in Baked Brie with Puff Pastry
To make this easy baked brie cheese in puff pastry, you only need a handful of common and easy to find fridge and pantry ingredients including the following:
- Puff pastry – Make sure to let it thaw completely before unfolding it
- Wheel of brie cheese – leave the rind on!
- Cranberry sauce – homemade or store-bought (see FAQs for suggestions)
- Orange zest
- Egg
- Water
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Baked Brie with Puff Pastry and Cranberry
To make one of my personal favorite recipes — because I could live off brie alone — follow my basic and straightforward steps and this easy brie puff pastry appetizer will be ready in 30 minutes!
- Slice the wheel of brie in half horizontally and lay the bottom half in the middle of the puff pastry.
- Stir the orange zest into the cranberry sauce and spoon nearly all of it over the brie and smooth it out with a spoon. (Reserve 2 tablespoons cranberry sauce for serving.) Place the other half of the brie on top, like a sandwich.
- Fold the corners of the puff pastry up and over the brie, sealing it with egg wash (exact instructions provided in the recipe card below).
- Place the brie bundle on a pan or plate lined with parchment and place it in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- On a Silpat lined or parchment lined baking sheet, bake the very cold puff pastry-wrapped brie at 425ºF until golden browned, remove, and rest for 5 minutes. Spoon reserved cranberry sauce over top before serving!
Recipe FAQs
If you can find a large wheel of brie, about 12 to 14 ounces, that’s perfect for this recipe. You will slice it in half horizontally and smear cranberry sauce in the middle of the halves, wrap in the puff pastry, and bake.
Alternatively, you can also use two 8-ounce wheels of brie, no slicing horizontally is necessary. Simply stack them on top of each other, with the cranberry sauce in the middle, wrap up in puff pastry, and bake.
You can use homemade cranberry sauce if you have some on hand. Or make some anyway just for this recipe.
I have a few homemade cranberry sauce recipes: Cabernet Cranberry and Blueberry Sauce, Spiced Apple Cider Cranberry Sauce, and Cabernet Cranberry and Currant Sauce.
Store-bought is also fine. If you’re going this route, opt for a tried-and-true cranberry sauce that yo
There’s a golden standby that you should be able to find all year long in the freezer case of most well-stocked grocery stores and that’s Pepperidge Farm. If your grocery store has a generic or store brand, it’ll be fine. Unlike pie crust, I don’t find too much variation in puff pastry from name brand to store brand and the store brand will be cheaper.
Puff pastry is usually sold in a long skinny box containing two folded up frozen sheets of puff pastry. You only need one of them for this recipe.
The egg wash helps create a golden browned color, as well as helping the pastry to adhere or “stick” to itself a bit better.
Yes and no. If you are a major fan of baked brie with cranberry sauce, minus the puff pastry, go ahead and make my Cranberry Baked Brie! It’s awesome, and super similar to this baked brie with puff pastry recipe but there’s no puff pastry. However, if you want to make the intended recipe, you do need to use puff pastry.
Yes! Select brie with the rind which is the common way it’s sold. At home, don’t try to trim off any of the rind. It’s not necessary to do so and actually disadvantageous since without the rind the brie is prone to melting, everywhere.
Some melting is good, but without the rind to add a bit of structure, the brie will free-fall melt all over, which isn’t what we want for an appetizer.
You may think it’s odd that after wrapping up the brie inside the puff pastry, that I instruct you to place the bundle in the freezer. That’s because puff pastry is made with a lot of butter or vegetable fats, and just like an all-butter pie crust that bakes up puffier, flakier, and lighter when you’re working with very cold dough, it’s the same principle here. Line your plate or whatever you’re using to freeze the brie bundle on with parchment paper so it doesn’t stick.
Scientifically, the cold bits of butter or fat will steam in the very hot oven, creating air bubbles which in turn creates the texture sensation of having really flaky and light layers and this is why we want to start with very cold puff pastry.
No, this brie puff pastry appetizer is best eaten immediately after it comes out of the oven. I don’t recommend trying to save and reheat any that’s leftover.
What to Serve with Brie in Puff Pastry
I like to serve mine with crackers. The crackers in the photos are Multigrain Breton.
My personal favorite crackers, for this dip and in general. include:
- Trader Joe’s Trail Mix Crackers. I bought these on a whim about a year and a half ago and I get everyone who tries them with me hooked on them too! A perfect mix of seeds and nuts and dried fruit “embedded” onto thin (but not too thin) and crispy crackers.
- Trader Joe’s Rosemary Raisin Crisps (yearlong) or Pumpkin Cranberry Crisps (fall holidays, seasonal) and sometimes before Christmas they get a Pomegranate flavor that’s in a fuchsia colored box although it’s been a couple seasons now that I’ve seen it.
You can also serve the baked brie appetizer recipe with thinly sliced red or green apples or firm pears sliced thinly.
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Baked Brie in Puff Pastry
Ingredients
- 1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
- one 12 to 14 ounce wheel of brie, halved horizontally with rind kept on (or two 8-inch wheels may be substituted; do not halve them just use as-is)
- 1 cup cranberry sauce, divided (chunky, whole berry sauce is best)*
- 1 teaspoon orange zest
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon water
- Crackers, for serving
- Apple and/or firm pear slices, for serving
Instructions
- Unfold 1 sheet of puff pastry after it's completely thawed. Don't force it if it's not because it will crack or rip. Place it on a clean countertop or work surface.
- If you're using a large 12 to 14 ounce wheel of brie, slice it in halve horizontally and place the bottom half in the center of the puff pastry. If you're using two 8-ounce wheels, you don't need to halve either one of them. Simply place one of the wheels in the center of the puff pastry.
- Top the brie with 1 cup (minus 2 tablespoons) of cranberry sauce*, orange zest, and smooth it over the top of the brie leaving a bare 1/2-margin around the perimeter. Reserve the 2 tablespoons for serving.
- Top with the remaining brie half, or the other intact wheel if using two 8-ounce wheels; set aside.
- Whisk together the egg and water.
- Fold one corner of the puff pastry up into the middle and over the top of the center of the brie.
- Brush the egg wash over the folded corner.
- Then fold up the next corner and edge, brushing with egg wash. Repeat until all the puff pastry has been folded over the brie. Tips – It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to create hospital corners. You do want to be mindful that the puff pastry is tightly sealed around the brie so when it starts to melt in the oven, the puff pastry will contain it so the cheese doesn't leak out. The egg wash serves to help both enhance the browning of the puff pastry so it develops a nice golden brown color, and also helps the puff pastry adhere to itself a bit better.
- Optionally, if you want to take the second sheet of puff pastry (make sure its thawed) and make cut out leaf shapes and place them on top of the brie, brushing them with egg wash so they adhere and turn golden, this is an optional creative touch. See how I did this with extra pie crust in my recent Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting to get an idea.
- Take your bundle of puff pastry and brie and set it on a plate or something it can rest on in your freezer and freeze it for 30 minutes. Line with parchment if you think it could stick. Do not skip this step of freezing because freezing helps chill the dough which will help it to bake up flakier, lighter, and crisper in the oven so do not omit this.
- After about 20 minutes of freezing, preheat your oven to 425F.
- Remove it from the oven, allow it to rest for about 5 minutes, and before serving top with the reserved 2 tablespoons cranberry sauce. Serve immediately. Baked brie is best served hot and fresh and this is not a recipe where the leftovers keep particularly well.
Notes
- Cabernet Cranberry and Blueberry Sauce – Move over, boring cranberry sauce! Cranberries are so much better with blueberries and wine! Make your own fresh cranberry and blueberry sauce in 30 minutes. It’s so easy, everyone loves it, a hands-down Averie Cooks reader favorite for almost a decade!
- Spiced Cranberry Sauce with Apples – Fast and easy homemade cranberry sauce that’s made with cranberries, apples, apple cider, cinnamon sticks, and allspice. A lovely balance of sweet-yet-tart with warmly spiced flavors!
- Cabernet Cranberry and Currant Sauce – Make your own easy homemade cranberry sauce in 30 minutes! This unique cranberry sauce recipe is especially great because of the wine!
- Cranberry Pineapple Mango Preservatives – Much more uniquely flavorful than traditional cranberry sauce from the addition of pineapple, mango, cinnamon, and ginger, which sweetly spice and enhance fresh cranberries and made in just half an hour!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Brie Appetizer Recipes:
Cranberry Baked Brie — An EASY 15-minute appetizer that’s filled AND topped with richly spiced orange-scented cranberry sauce. Perfect for holiday entertaining! This cranberry brie is salty, tart-yet-sweet, and IRRESISTIBLE!!
Baked Brie with Balsamic Cherries – Only 3 ingredients and ready in 15 minutes! So easy and so good!
Black Currant and Walnut Stuffed Baked Brie Appetizer — Gooey, AMAZING, salty-and-sweet!! Stuffed with jam, topped with walnuts, and so EASY! Perfect for holiday entertaining and parties!!
Cranberry Brie Bites — ❤️🤤 The perfect two-bite holiday appetizer recipe with melted brie cheese, sweet-tart cranberry sauce, and fresh rosemary all nestled inside a buttery soft crust!
