Baked Brie Board

And of all the boards we're making in this series, today's was the clear winner with my taste testers. This board is a great way to elevate humble ingredients into something totally spectacular. So, let's get to it!

Today, we're making a Baked Brie Board!

We're taking 2 wheels of double crème brie, adding a couple special ingredients to amp up the flavor, then popping them in the oven until they're ooey, gooey, and totally rich and creamy.

Our first flavor of baked brie is a truffle honey brulee brie. I'm gonna let you sit on that for a second! Did you even know you could brulee cheese? Because you can!

The first thing we need for baked brie is an oven safe dish that's slightly larger than the brie wheel. We want to use a vessel that gives us enough room to dip into the brie right from the dish. But, we don't want anything too big that would allow the brie to ooze all over the place if it were to explode over the sides of the rind. I find that a 6.5 inch mini cast iron skillet is the absolute perfect size for baking and serving. And, it's way way cheaper than ceramic dishes that are specifically marketed as “brie bakers”.

So for the truffle honey brulee brie, we're going to start by cutting off the top rind of the cheese. It's easiest to do this when the brie is cold and straight from the fridge. You could use a sharp, serrated knife to do this. You can get special cheese knives to do this. Or, I actually use a cake leveler to do this so that I don't lose much of the actual cheese. Once the top is sliced off, we're going to spread the top of the cheese with truffle honey, then pop it in the oven.

We can (and should) bake both bries at the same time, so we can prep our pepper prosciutto brie now too. For this baked brie, we're going to score the top of the cheese, drizzle it with a little olive oil, give it a sprinkle of black pepper, then top it with some torn prosciutto. To the oven this one goes, as well. And, both bries will bake for 8-10 mins until they're soft and gooey but not overflowing.

While the brie bakes, we can prepare the rest of our grazing board. We want to make sure we serve this board while the brie is piping hot, so that will be the last thing you add. And here's a hot tip: use the container the brie came in as a placeholder to know where the brie will go on the board, then build your other components around the casings. Then when it's time to serve, swap out the brie case with the actual skillet, and you're ready to go. We're going to let the brie shine on this board, so the additional components will be simple: more prosciutto, grapes, crackers, and nuts.

Once both bries are done baking, we're going to plop them on our board. The only thing left to do is finish our brulee brie by sprinkling some turbinado sugar over the top, and using a kitchen torch to caramelize the sugar. You get that same crackly effect that you'd get from a crème brulee, and it's pure magic.

Ok, everyone. Even though it's incredibly simple, today's board feels luxurious and fancy. Tomorrow's board switches gears a bit using humble ingredients that even the kiddos will love.

I hope you all enjoy. And, let's eat!