Valentine's Day Baked Brie
Baked double-cream brie with homemade cranberry-pecan jam, topped with dried currants, dried cranberries, walnuts, pecans, honey, rosemary, thyme, sea salt & a sprinkle of chili flakes
Recipe
Ingredients:
1 ball of pizza dough
flour for dusting
olive oil
salt & pepper
semolina flour for pizza stone
For the cranberry jam:
1 cup cranberries (fresh or frozen)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup pecans
For the baked brie
1 wheel of your favorite double crème brie, sliced into thin wedges
3/4 cup pecans, roughly chopped
1/3 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup dried currants
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons finely chopped rosemary
pinch of smoked paprika
crushed red pepper, to taste
Directions:
Start with your cranberry jam—you can make this ahead and store it in the fridge, but it doesn’t take long if you want to make it with the rest of your pizza. If you’re making it all at once, preheat your oven to 550° F. (If not, you can preheat whenever you’re ready to make your pizza).
Combine the cranberries, sugar and water in a pot over medium-high heat, and bring to a boil. You’ll see the cranberries begin to burst open, at which point you can reduce the heat to medium and simmer for about 5 to 7 minutes.
Add the pecans and cook for another couple of minutes, stirring occasionally, until it starts to get thick and jammy. Use an immersion blender to get the jam to your desired consistency—I like it mostly smooth with some chunks remaining.
When you’re ready to make your pizza and your oven is hot, prepare your dough using the instructions on the right. Since this was our Valentine’s Day pizza, we used a heart shaped pan instead of a pizza stone, and molded the dough into a heart by hand. You can still make the heart shaped dough on a regular pizza stone if you like, or you can just make it a regular boring old circle.
Once you’ve baked the dough for a minute, take it out and brush it lightly with olive oil. Top with the brie slices—we’re simulating baked brie here, so feel free to be more generous than usual with your cheese proportions.
Next, spread the jam in an even layer over the brie, followed by the nuts, dried fruits and herbs. If you want, you can leave a couple pinches of herbs to add afterwards for a little more vibrant green.
Sprinkle with sea salt, paprika and some crushed red pepper. Drizzle with honey and then pop the pizza in the oven. Bake until the cheese is gooey and the crust is a nice golden brown, then take it out and enjoy!
This recipe was adapted from a baked brie recipe we found on this blog.