Baked Brie with Honey and Walnuts (brie en croute)

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appetiser, appetizer, baked brie, brie, brie en croute, cheese, entertaining, food, fruit, honey, party, pastry, recipe, walnuts

Baked brie is a favorite in our house. There are many ways to make the crust like the easy, quick method of using puff pastry, but I prefer phyllo dough. Sure you have to butter each layer… but that’s what makes it so good. You can serve it with a myriad of accompaniments. I like to make up a big plate of various fruits and serve it with wheat crackers.

Here’s how it goes…

First you’ll need to set up your dough. Melt some butter. At least a half of a stick, maybe more depending on how much you slather it up. I go through a good two thirds of one just for this part.

Place one sheet of phyllo dough down (I like to use a flexible cutting mat. You’ll see why soon) and butter that baby up. The whole thing.

Lay another sheet on top of that one and repeat the buttering process until you have the whole stack done. (Two packages come in a box. You only need one of those.) The first few sheets will be fairly delicate. Once you have a few layered it gets a little more sturdy and easier to brush without tearing. Speaking of tearing, don’t worry too much about the dough ripping or separating. It mends easily once layered and it’s all going to get wrapped up around the brie anyway. Don’t worry about bubbles either. No big deal. In fact, air pockets add to the crusts flakiness.

Next you’ll want to transfer your dough to a buttered pan. I prefer glass, but I’m sure whatever you’re used to baking in will work fine. Just keep an eye out for burning if you use some thin metal or something. This is where the flexible mat comes in handy. The whole thing can be picked up and moved without it, but it truly is easier to just invert and peel. Also you don’t risk tearing the dough.

Place your brie wheel right in the center of the dough. There are differing opinions on whether to keep the rind on or not. I choose to keep it. It tastes too dang good to remove.

Now, fold up the edges of the pastry around the brie keeping the dough close to the cheese. Tuck as you go around like so…

You should end up with a nice pretty package like this…

Bake at 375 for 10 – 15 minutes. Just as it gets to the point where it’s turning golden, pull it out and drizzle honey over the top. I drizzle until most of it is covered. Throw some walnuts (pieces) on top of that and then drizzle more honey over that. It’s really up to you how much. Stick it under the broiler and keep an eye on it. It only takes a few minutes to brown up the rest of the way, toast up the nuts and caramelize the honey a bit. Don’t let it burn, but you do want it to get a nice brown crust.

Somewhere in that time you’ll want to cut up some fruit. I like a variety… there are so many combinations that you might not think would go well together, but you’ll be surprised.

You can let the brie set up for a minute if you wish, but if you cut into it right away, you get a nice, wet , gooey, dip-able cheese like this…

It will firm up as it cools and you’ll be cutting pieces more than dipping. So many fruits pair well with the walnuts, buttery pastry, honey and brie. Try different combinations.  Enjoy the experience.

This is absolutely one of my favorite treats and there are a billion ways prepare baked brie… with and without crusts, sweet accompaniments, as a savory dish… endless I tell ya. Sounds like a compilation post is brewing. Hmmm and Mmmmm.

Try this and tell me what you think. My bet is it’ll be your new favorite 🙂

Super Easy Crab Rangoon

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appetizer, crab, Crab Rangoon, cream cheese, easy, entertaining, food, fried, hosting, party, rangoon, recipies, seafood

Crab Rangoon is one of the simplest appetizers to whip up. There are many variations and everyone has their favorite style. I’m going to share a super simple recipe and method made especially easy for kitchen novices.
Start out by softening two 8oz blocks of cream cheese and thaw if need be about 8oz of cooked (or imitation) crab meat. Everyone likes their Rangoon spiced differently so play with it a little if you find something you might like or if you dislike something on my list. I suggest white pepper, ground celery seed, garlic powder, chili powder and salt. You don’t need much. Maybe a half a teaspoon or so of each depending on your tastes.

Just put it all in a bowl and mix it up with a fork. Simple.

Now the part that makes this super easy is the part that people often stress over… the folding of the wrapper. There are a billion ways to fold a wonton or egg roll wrapper. My family has a tendency to eat the innards and leave behind the crispy tails that stand alone with no filling. My answer to this is to fold the wrappers into envelop shapes around the filling eliminating the uneaten bits left about. I use egg roll wrappers. They’re larger and easier to handle. Simple steps for folding in the next pics…

Start out by laying your wrapper in a diamond shape so that the bottom is a corner facing you. Scoop up a blop of filling and place it near the center of the wrapper a little closer to you than the center. Like so…

Set a small dish of water nearby for sealing up the edges. Next, fold up the corners like so…

Now you’ll use that water to seal up the edges. Simply dip your finger into the water and run it along the top corner of the wrap.

Then fold it over to seal. Viola!

Make 3 or 4 of these at a time and drop em in hot oil til they’re just about golden. I do them in batches, but if you have a large deep fryer or something that’ll handle more, go for it. They should come out looking like this…

Perfect little packages made especially for dippin’.

Use your favorite sweet n sour sauce. I might just have to do a blog post on sauces. Hmmmm

You could get crazy and make your own wrappers, but if you’re like me ya just can’t get them quite thin enough. Mine come out like this…

But that’s another post as well. I’ll leave you with a picture of these Easy Crab Rangoon… Believe me, if I could leave you with a taste or even a smell I would. 😉

Try the envelop method and tell me what you think.

Enjoy!

Scottish Shortbread with Chocolate and Pretzels

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chocolate, dessert, easy, food, pretzel, recipe, shortbread, snack, sweet

So my Hubs was all about these Milano ® cookies. The ones with the broken pretzel pieces. Yeah, they’re good but all I could think while scarfing them down was how easy they’d be to make. Or at least to make something similar. I could have copied it more directly by making tiny thin cookies blah, blah, blah… but I decided to do em up the way I thought they ought to be. Fat.

For those of you who are timid in the kitchen, never fear these babies are some of the easiest things you’ll ever make. Here’s how I did it. Step by step.

Cream 1 c butter and 1/2 c sugar.

Gradually add 2 c flour till you get a workable dough.

Divide dough in half and roll each half into a ball.

Flatten dough into a pie plate and press out to edges.

I use a spatula to shape the edges to make more of a uniform thickness throughout the disc… to prevent overly crispy edges.

Bake 300 degrees 30-40 minutes

Now you don’t have to score these but I find it’s easier to cut them later if I do.

While those are cooling, melt about a cup or so of chocolate chips and about 1/3 stick of butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds.

I wanted a smoother texture so I added a large spoonful of shortening and nuked again (30 sec intervals, stirring in between) until smooth.

Pour the chocolate over both crusts and spread evenly over the tops.

Sprinkle crushed pretzel pieces over the tops. – Note: It helps to crush your pretzels ahead of time. I actually didn’t think that far and realized it as I was pouring the first chocolate top… it was a mad rush to break up the pieces before my chocolate cooled too much for them to stick.

I had fun making these. They turned out great and the experience gave me a ton of ideas for new recipes. Also, I’ve discovered something about myself. I really like taking pictures of food. I mean really. I took over 50 pics of this process and the finished product. It actually took me longer to go through and decide which ones to use than it did to make the whole dish.

Try this out. Let me know what you think.

Approxipeasy Cheesecake Balls

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cheese cake, chocolate, cream cheese, dessert, entertaining, food, hosting, party, recipe, treats

MMMmmm Who doesn’t love cheesecake balls? Well I’m sure someone doesn’t… but no one I know 😉

So you basically start out making something similar to cheesecake without the things that require it to be baked. Namely eggs.

Set three packages of cream cheese (8 oz each) and a stick of butter out to soften. Once soft, you’ll want to beat those together with about 2/3 cup sugar. [You can use powdered sugar or granulated sugar in this recipe, but powdered will give you a better texture. I actually poured the tiniest bit of milk into the granulated sugar to dissolve it just enough to be smooth in the cream cheese.] Add a little vanilla if you like. (I did).

Yummy creamy goodness. Now here comes the most important part…

Scoop up a glob of that stuff and give ‘er a taste test. Or two or three. That’s integral to this thing turning out right. Seriously, it’s a must. 😉

Put that in the fridge to stiffen up a bit. In a separate bowl melt about a half stick of butter and toss in some sugar (probably 1/4 cup or so) and some crushed graham crackers (about a cup and a half worth).

it looks like I have more sugar than crumbs in there, but seriously I added more crumbs 😉

Once your cream cheese mixture is stiff enough to roll into balls… do that. Roll balls that are about a teaspoon or so worth into the crumb mixture. I got to the point where I stopped actually rolling them and just dumped a spoonful into the crumbs and let them kind of take their own shape.

You can set up a little assembly station (the kiddos like this part). Once you have a fair amount rolled up (ie: you fill up a pan, sheet, or box as I have) place them back in the fridge to stiffen back up. Put whatever unused cream mixture you have left back in the fridge to stiffen up also.

While those are cooling. Mix up a batch of chocolate to drizzle over the tops. Just put some chocolate chips (I used semisweet) in a bowl or jar (maybe half a bag) with some lard or butter. I used both… a couple big glops. (don’t ask me how much that is… a quarter cup?)

Nuke that for 30 seconds. Stir. Repeat…

Until smooth (you can reheat occasionally if you need to thin it as it thickens while you’re using it).

Drizzle over the cheesecake balls. Repeat the whole process for the rest of the cream mixture and voila you have a big ole batch of ultra yummy treats!

Keep them cool (or even frozen) until time to serve… they get soft really fast. I had a bunch left over from our Easter get together and put them in a ziplock in the freezer… I just pop a frozen one in my mouth when I want something sweet and they’re not rock hard like you’d expect. If you want them a little softer, they soften at room temp in literally minutes. Enjoy!

There are a billion ways to change this up… add ins, cocoa, rolled in nuts… Maybe I’ll have to do a blog post about all the different ways you can alter these babies. Try this recipe and let me know what you think.