Baked Brie Cranberry in Bread Bowl

For your Thanksgiving, Christmas and any holiday parties, try this elegant easy 3 ingredient baked brie cranberry in a pull-apart bread bowl for dipping! 

If you loved my Baked Brie Recipe, you’re going to love this one! For your Thanksgiving, Christmas and any holiday parties, try this elegant easy 3 ingredient baked brie cranberry, served in a pull-apart bread bowl for dipping! This crowd pleasing festive appetizer is perfect for entertaining and so easy to make!

If you’ve ever baked brie in the oven before, you know what a crowd pleaser it is! Top it off with any jam and nuts and it makes for a fancy, beautiful and absolutely delicious appetizer! The best part about this recipe, is that your guests can pull apart the bread bowl, and dip it right into the brie and cranberry! It’s absolutely perfect for entertaining.

A GREAT THANKSGIVING LEFTOVERS RECIPE

After Thanksgiving there is usually an overabundance of cranberry sauce prepare and left over! This is a 3-ingredient recipe for baked brie cranberry that makes it so easy to use up any extra cranberry sauce you make or have left over. It literally only needs cranberry sauce, a round bread boule and a wheel of cheese.

INGREDIENTS

• Bread boule: A round loaf of rustic bread. You can use whole wheat or white.
• Cooking spray: I prefer to use cooking spray as you use a lot less oil this way.
• Brie: This recipe requires one whole wheel of brie. It’s a wonderfully creamy cheese that gets super gooey when melted.
• Cranberry sauce: You can use homemade or store bought.
• Thyme: Fresh thyme adds a great flavor as well as adding some festive color.

HOW TO MAKE BAKED BRIE CRANBERRY BREAD BOWL

First, it’s important to get a round bread boule that is bigger than a standard brie wheel. You can usually find this in the bakery section of most grocery stores. You want to find one that is both wide and deep enough to fit the cheese. I haven’t had a hard time finding it in stores.

Then you want to slice off the top portion leaving just enough to fit the width of the brie or slightly wider. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time around. You can slice it until you have a surface wide enough. Use a long serrated knife to make it easier.

Next, peel the rind off the cheese wheel all around it removing as much of it as you can; it doesn’t have to be perfect. Place the cheese wheel on top of the flat bread surface (as a measuring guide) and use a smaller knife to cut around the perimeter of the cheese.

Start hallowing out the bread and go as deep as the depth of the brie cheese you have. You can use your hands or a spoon to dig out the bread. There’s no need to hollow out all the bread; just enough to fit the cheese snugly in the bread.

When the bread is hallowed on the inside, slice around the bread about 1 – 1 ½ inches part. Be sure not to go all the way through to the bottom though. This creates the tear-apart bread that will be used for dipping.

Then place the brie inside the bread boule. The the tedious part of the recipe is all done. You’re pretty much done with the labor intensive part. But hey, we haven’t actually cooked anything yet, so it’s not so bad, right?!

Next, spray the bread boule with cooking spray. You can do this before or after placing the cheese inside. And then add about half a cup of cranberry sauce – enough to cover the entire surface of the brie cheese. You can also sprinkle on some fresh thyme at this point, or wait until it’s baked before adding them.

When it comes out of the oven, you basically get a baked brie cranberry stuffed bread bowl with built-in dippers! You’ll know it’s done because the bread will get golden brown and slightly crunchy, and the brie cheese will get nice and melty. The melty salty brie with the sweet tart cranberry sauce is a match made in heaven – it’s a bomb flavor combination that screams holidays! This is such a crowd pleaser for holiday events and gatherings!

TIPS FOR MAKING THE RECIPE WELL

1. Buy high quality crusty bread boule, which is basically a round loaf of bread. This is important because the crusty bread will be able to hold up the heavy wheel of cheese and cranberry sauce without breaking apart. You can use freshly baked bread or day-old bread; either one works fine.
2. Use good quality triple cream brie. Double cream is cool, but triple?! Self explanatory hahahaha
3. Cut the rind off the cheese all round, just enough to see the cheese, without cutting off any of the cheese. This is important to make sure that the cheese oozes out after baking in the oven.
4. Serve immediately! The beauty of this tear-apart bread with baked brie cranberry is the melty cheese that oozes out as you tear out the cut pieces of bread. If you’re taking this to a friend’s house, I would recommend baking it for 15 minutes. Then finishing off the final 10 minutes when you arrive to the party.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What cranberry sauce is best to use?

When it comes to the cranberry sauce, you can do homemade or canned. I used my cranberry orange sauce but it also works really well with this cranberry relish, which is baked in the oven and gets pretty thick, like jam. If you don’t want to bother buying or making cranberry sauce, you can even do this with cranberry jam, or another jam flavor you like.

Can you make this baked brie cranberry recipe ahead of time?

I recommend that you make bake this appetizer just before serving so that the cheese is wonderfully melty and the bread is slightly crispy.You can store any leftovers in an airtight container. They will last about 3-4 days in the fridge. When ready to eat, just microwave or toast the portion to be eaten.

How do you keep baked brie warm?

If you have baked the brie and cranberry, but aren’t quite ready to serve it, you can wrap it in foil to keep it warm. if needed, place it back in the oven before serving to gently reheat it.

This recipe is one of those reliable crowd-pleasers that only takes a few minutes to prepare and only needs three ingredients. It’s a wonderful appetizer to wet everyone’s appetite before a big meal.