One of the first recipes I made by myself, on my own, without the help of anyone, was a baked brie (looking up “bake”, “simmer” and “Tbsp” in the dictionary doesn’t count, right?)
What’s great about a baked brie is that you can pretty much put anything you want on top (apples/walnuts, red pepper/Dijon, pear/ham) and it always comes out amazing. It’s also a quick and easy appetizer that is sure to impress any guest with little effort on your part.
Ingredients:
- 300g wheel of brie
- 2/3 cup of dried apricots, diced
- 4 Tbsp of cherries, pitted & quartered
- 1 tsp of black peppercorns, whole
- Juice of ½ a lemon
- 1 tsp of brown sugar
- 1 cup of white wine (or water)
Directions: In a medium sauce pan, simmer apricots, peppercorns, brown sugar and lemon juice in white wine (or water) for 5 minutes or until wine becomes syrupy. Remove apricot mixture from heat and let cool for 10 minutes. In the meantime, preheat oven to 400ᴼF, place brie in the center of two layers of aluminum foil and poke holes at the top of the brie with a fork. Once apricot mixture is cooled, mix in cherries and pour everything on top of the brie. Wrap brie in the tin foil and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Let the baked brie (still wrapped in tin foil) cool on the counter for 5 minutes. Then serve with crackers or crusty bread.
Note: If you dislike the feeling of biting into whole peppercorns, shame on you, you can ground them into the apricot mixture instead :).
If this dish were a song, I’d like to think it would be “Mojo Ego” by Misteur Valaire; it’s smooth with some spice.
JulieB
The Porto Bellas 
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I absolutely LOVE baked brie. I’m trying this recipe tonight!!