This Baked Cranberry Brie is an easy holiday appetizer that’s delicious, festive, gorgeous, and incredibly quick to throw together. Baked and presented in a loaf of bread, it combines gooey melted Brie cheese with tangy cranberry sauce and tastes great served with your favorite crackers, sliced bread, or chips.
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Baked Brie with Cranberries
Baked Brie with Cranberries is a delicious, impressive, and festive appetizer that also happens to be incredibly quick and easy to prepare. In this recipe, an entire wheel of buttery Brie cheese is topped with cranberry sauce and baked inside a hollowed loaf of bread until melted, gooey, and delicious.
This traditional holiday appetizer truly couldn’t be simpler to prepare. Serve with fresh rosemary or chopped walnuts as a garnish and a side of your favorite crackers, sliced bread, chips, or fresh fruit and veggies for dipping. Don’t limit yourself to making Baked Brie during the holidays - it’s perfect for game day, an easy light lunch, or snacking before dinner.
Ingredients in Baked Cranberry Brie
- Round Bread Loaf - find a round loaf of bread that is slightly larger than a wheel of Brie. If you want to try wrapping and baking the Brie with puff pastry or phyllo dough, see our instructions below.
- Brie Cheese Wheel - you’ll need one 8-12 ounce wheel of Brie for this recipe.
- Cranberry Sauce - you can either use fresh homemade or leftover cranberry sauce, or use store bought cranberry sauce. Or, try this recipe using a different preserve such as apricot preserves, fig preserves, or raspberry preserves.
- Butter - melt the butter so that it can be easily brushed over the bread before baking.
- Garlic Salt - this is to season the melted butter and bread slightly.
How to Make Baked Brie with Cranberries
- Prepare the bread loaf. Using a serrated knife, cut the top off the bread loaf making sure to cut the top slightly wider than the Brie wheel. Save the top and set aside. Place the Brie wheel on the loaf and use it as a guide for cutting a circle in the loaf about 1" deep. Use your hands to remove the bread in the circle of the loaf, making the hole in your loaf a little deeper than your Brie wheel.
- Add the Brie and cranberries. Brush the hollowed out sides and bottom of the bread with melted butter and sprinkle with garlic salt. Place the unwrapped Brie inside the bread loaf and cover the top with cranberry sauce. Place the top of the bread back on the loaf.
- Bake. Cover with foil, place in the prepared baking dish, and bake in the preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted in the center.
- Serve. Once baked, remove from the oven and place the Baked Brie on a serving dish or large plate, garnished with fresh rosemary if desired. Serve warm with more bread, naan, crackers, or chips. Enjoy!
How to Make Pastry-Wrapped Baked Brie Cranberry
Wrapping the Brie in either puff pastry or phyllo dough rather than baking in a loaf of bread is an excellent choice, too. You’ll need 1 sheet of frozen puff pastry, or about 3 sheets of phyllo dough.
Simply lay the sheet (or sheets) on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and place the Brie in the center. Top with cranberry sauce, then fold the corners of the pastry over the top of the cheese. Brush with the melted butter and bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for about 20-25 minutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
For this Baked Brie recipe, we don’t recommend removing the rind. It is entirely edible and once the cheese has melted, it becomes quite soft. If you try to remove the rind, you will also lose quite a bit of the wheel of cheese.
If your Baked Cranberry Brie is coming out rubbery, it’s likely because you baked it for too long. After a while, too much moisture will evaporate making even melted cheese tough.
At 375 degrees F, it should take about 20-25 minutes to bake the Brie. You just want the cheese to melt, so the best way to check is to stick a toothpick into the center. If it comes out with melted cheese on it, the Baked Brie is done.
While you can prepare components ahead of time, you want to bake the Brie just before serving. You could hollow out the bread round and wrap with plastic wrap, then store overnight. If you plan to use Homemade Cranberry Sauce, you can make that up to a few days in advance and store in the fridge.
Storing and Reheating
- Refrigerator: store completely cooled Baked Brie in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
- To reheat: preheat your oven to 300 degrees F, then transfer the Baked Cranberry Brie to a baking dish and cover with foil. Warm just long enough to melt the cheese, then enjoy.
Baked Cranberry Brie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 large Round Bread Loaf
- 8 ounce Brie Cheese Wheel
- ¾ cup Cranberry Sauce homemade or from a can
- 1 Tablespoon Butter melted
- ½ teaspoon Garlic Salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Spray a 9" x 9" square baking dish with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
- Using a serrated knife, cut the top off the bread loaf making sure to cut the top slightly wider than the Brie wheel. Save the top and set aside.
- Place the Brie wheel on the loaf and use it as a guide for cutting a circle in the loaf about 1" deep. Use your hands to remove the bread in the circle of the loaf, making the hole in your loaf a little deeper than your Brie wheel.
- Brush the hollowed out sides and bottom of the bread with melted butter and sprinkle with garlic salt. Place the unwrapped Brie inside the bread loaf and cover the top with cranberry sauce. Place the top of the bread back on the loaf.
- Cover with foil, place in the prepared baking dish, and bake in the preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted in the center.
- Once baked, remove from the oven and place the Baked Brie on a serving dish or large plate, garnished with fresh rosemary if desired. Serve warm with more bread, naan, crackers, or chips. Enjoy!
Nutrition
More of the Best Holiday Appetizer Recipes
- Italian Mini Kabobs
- Brie Bites
- Cheddar Chive Popovers
- Frank's Buffalo Chicken Dip
- Spicy Italian Meatballs
- Cinnamon Twists with Puff Pastry
- Garlic Knots
- Baked Buffalo Chicken Bites
- Chicken Alfredo Dip
- Zucchini Chips
- More Dip Recipes
- More Easy Appetizers
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This easy Cranberry Baked Brie recipe is impressive, delicious, and super simple to make. It's one of the best holiday appetizers that everyone loves.
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