Baked Brie

During the holidays, a mom blogger shared a recipe for something called baked brie.  It sounded divine and like something i just had to try.  The original recipe called for canned biscuit croissant dough and a lot of other things i didn’t want to use.  So i figured i would  simply make my own croissants and just fill up the inside with brie. I used a go-to croissant recipe from one of my new favorite cook books, Frame by Frame baking and winged the rest.  Here are my results! 😉

Ingredients

Croissants

3 ½ cups all-purpose flour

3 TBSP organic cane sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp active dry yeast

1½ cups lukewarm milk

1¼ cups butter, softened

1 egg, beaten

Filling

½ lb of brie cheese

1 TBSP fresh herbs finely chopped (I used oregano and thyme)

1 tsp dried lavender

preheat oven to 400°  Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, make a well in the center and add milk. Mix to a soft dough, adding more milk if too dry. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth.  Place in a large greased bowl, cover and let stand in a warm place until doubled in bulk.

Meanwhile place butter between two sheets of parchment paper and flatten with a rolling-pin to form a ¼ inch thick rectangle. Set aside in the refrigerator until required.

Knead dough for 1 minute, remove the butter from refrigerator and roll out dough into a large rectangle shape. Place butter in the center of dough, folding up the sides and squeezing the edges together gently.  With the short end of the dough toward you, fold the top third down and the bottom third up.

Give the dough a quarter turn and roll out as big as original rectangle and fold again. If butter feels soft, wrap dough in plastic and chill.  Repeat process 4 more times. This is how the croissant gets its flaky insides, so don’t skip these steps.

Once croissant dough is rolled into a large rectangle tear brie into pieces and drop directly into the middle of dough.  Sprinkle with fresh herbs and lavender.  Then carefully fold dough onto brie to be sure that cheese is totally covered and parts of dough is overlapping.

Place on large baking dish lined with parchment paper.  Bake for about 30 minutes or until croissant bread is done and edges start to turn golden brown.  Cool completely and then serve.

[slideshow]