Cranberry Brie Bites
These cranberry brie bites are festive, easy and DELICIOUS! Puff pastry, brie, cranberry sauce and a simple topping make such a tasty combination!
Cranberry + brie cheese is incredible, especially when wrapped up in puff pastry!
And these delightful little puff pastry bites are always a hit for parties, appetizers, or anytime. I personally make them sometimes just for…me. I love them so much.
A Note About Puff Pastry
This recipe calls for one sheet of puff pastry. We’re not bothering with homemade puff pastry here (remember, this is an easy recipe), but if you want to go that route, please do so! #rockstar
Roll the sheet of puff pastry out into a thin rectangle and cut into 24 squares.
A Note About Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry sauce is a tart, sweet key component of this recipe.
In the recipe, I’ve given a super easy homemade cranberry sauce recipe. You can use your own recipe for cranberry sauce or even cranberry sauce from the can, if that’s your taste preference.
You’ll need just a little over a cup of cranberry sauce for the recipe.
Too much cranberry will overwhelm the brie, so don’t be too heavy handed with it.
A Note About Brie Cheese
Speaking of brie cheese…let’s talk about it!
The biggest question with brie cheese is whether to remove the rind or not. While the rind doesn’t impart noticeable flavor, I think the brie is creamier without it (I know not everyone will agree with me – let’s still be friends).
I use a sharp knife to shave off most of the rind without digging into the precious cheese too much. You can see from the picture below that there are still little nubbins of rind on the cheese, but most of it is gonzo.
Pro tip: since brie is a soft cheese, freezing the wheel of brie for a few minutes or coating your knife blade with cooking spray will help the cutting process.
Press each chunk of brie into a cute, little round disc so it nestles right into the muffin cup.
Assembling the Cranberry Brie Bites
- Press each square of puff pastry into the bottom of a greased mini muffin cup.
- Pop in a piece of brie.
- Top with a teaspoon of cranberry sauce.
- Sprinkle finely chopped pecans, brown sugar, and coarse, kosher salt on top.
- Bake until golden and sizzling.
The brie may bubble up and out of the puff pastry cups a little bit. That’s ok!
To minimize this, you can put the cranberry sauce in the bottom and the brie on top, but I don’t think the bites are quite as pretty that way.
So I personally champion the messy look (kind of like my daily outfit of joggers + messy bun: #keepinitreal), and I love the golden bits of brie around the edges.
How to Serve
These cranberry brie bites are tasty served warm or at room temperature.
It works best to let them cool in the muffin tin for 2-3 minutes and then use a butter knife to gently lift out of the pan onto a serving tray.
A Perfect Little Treat
Are these cranberry brie bites a treat or a snack? An appetizer or a side dish? 😉 I’ll let you decide!
As irresistible as they are to me (as in, I can pretty much eat the entire bite-size batch without a second’s hesitation), I put them in the treat category. But they really do make a wonderful appetizer or snack.
The tart, sweet, creamy, cheesy, flaky, buttery combo is so incredibly delicious! A favorite holiday “treat” for sure!
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Cranberry Brie Bites
Ingredients
Cranberry Brie Bites:
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
- 8 ounces brie cheese
- 1 ¼ cup cranberry sauce (homemade version below)
- ¼ cup finely chopped pecans
- Brown sugar
- Coarse, kosher salt
Homemade Cranberry Sauce:
- 1 cup (4 ounces, 113 g) fresh cranberries
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon fresh orange zest
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease a 24-cup mini muffin tin with cooking spray.
- Roll the puff pastry out between two sheets of parchment paper or on a lightly floured counter to about 10-X14-inches. Cut the puff pastry sheet lengthwise into four strips and then crosswise into six strips to make 24 squares.
- Gently press each square into the cups of the prepared muffin tin.
- Cut the brie into 24 pieces, about 3/4- to 1-inch in size (removing the rind is optional; I like to cut as much off as possible without digging into the cheese). If the brie is too soft to cut easily, use a knife coated in cooking spray to cut and/or freeze the brie for a few minutes.
- Press each piece of brie into a round, thick disc shape and place in the bottom of each muffin cup.
- Add a teaspoon or so of cranberry sauce on top of each piece of brie followed by a sprinkle of pecans and a pinch of brown sugar and salt.
- Place the mini muffin tin on a foil-lined baking sheet to catch any spillovers and bake for 18-20 minutes until the puff pastry is golden and the cheese is sizzling.
- Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 2-3 minutes. Use a butter knife to gently lift each puff pastry bite from the muffin tin to a platter. Serve warm or at room temperature.
- For the homemade cranberry sauce, combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring often, until the cranberries have burst and softened and the sauce is thick and syrupy (it will thicken more as it cools). Let the sauce cool to room temp before using in the recipe.
Thanks for the cook mode button!!! I love it. I think I asked you about it a while ago. So thank you, thank you thank you!
Fabulous, easy….everyone raves about these!
I bought some premade mini puff pastry shells not the frozen kind, and the directions say to bake at 325 for 10 min then fill. If I filled them first, Do you think that is hot enough and enough time to get the Brie to melt and bubble up or should I increase the temp?
You might prebake the shells to see how that works to ensure they aren’t doughy.
I don’t see anywhere that we are supposed to pre-bake the shells. Did I miss it??
The recipe doesn’t call for pre baking the shells but you can if you’d like to try it that way.
These were tasty, but I had a lot of trouble getting the puff pastry to cook fully and it was still a bit doughy while the brie was bubbling all out of the cups. I love your other brie bites recipe and next time I make these I will definitely prebake the puff pastry like in that recipe.
Hey Mel!
Do you think that regular pie crust would work well as a substitute for the puff pastry?
I haven’t tried that – definitely worth experimenting!
Made these for Christmas Eve, and they were amazing! Loved them so much and very easy to make!
I couldn’t find a store that had puff pastry in stock, so I decided to try it with phyllo dough sheets. I did 5 layers of dough sheets (with butter brushed in between each layer) and cut into 12 pieces. So I used 10 sheets in all for this recipe. They were delicious and went fast at our holiday party. Will definitely be making again once I can get my hands on puff pastry!
These were a big hit even with my Oops in baking them I think I undercooked a little but could not tell until I removed from the pan. While the tops had a light brown and the cheese bubbly, the dough inside the pan was not even brown and a little wet looking. I attributed that to the melting cheese and cranberry sauce but I think I will leave them in a little longer next time. Believe me they got eaten anyway. Loved the recipe. Thank you for sharing.
So visually appetizing! Can’t wait to make these Sunday morning for Christmas brunch. Every year we go to families house and I usually bring my famous spinach dip and my grandma’s fruit salad with lots of whipped cream:-) this year I’m bringing Grandma’s fruit salad and your beautiful cranberry Brie bites everybody is excited:-) Sunday cannot get here soon enough:-) thank you for sharing this beautiful recipe:-) I will let you know how it turns out. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!
Absolutely divine!! Made them just for some holiday fun and they were a huge hit with my family. Everyone loved these divine morsels!! I didn’t realize I had run out of pecans and used chopped almonds which tasted delightful. Can’t wait to try it with pecans….probably tomorrow 😀
These were a big hit at the holiday party I brought them to and perfectly festive! The directions were very clear and it all came together rather easily for such an impressive presentation. I assembled everything at home and baked them at the party, and everyone raved! I will definitely keep this recipe in mind for the future!
where is the cook temperature? Maybe I missed it but at no point did I see where or for how long to cook/bake.
In step #1 it gives the bake temperature (375 degrees) and in step #7 it tells the bake time (18-20 minutes).
Loverly Brie recipe ! Bon apetite
Easy and tasty! I use a pizza cutter for the dough and for the Brie…easy peasy!
Awesome!
I haven’t made this recipe yet, but I plan to very soon I just found it as much as I love brie and cranberries. I know that I am going to absolutely love this recipe. I’ve been looking for something else I can do with Brie because the one recipe I have far is awesome and then it goes like crazy with the kids so I’ll let you know how it is at five make it thank you.
Can these be frozen?
I haven’t tried that, but I think they should freeze pretty well!
I bet this would be good with some type of chutney over the Brie, if you’re not a cranberry fan.
So I thought I had an open package of puff pastry in my freezer but it turns out it’s phyllo dough. Any recommendations on how I could use this for some Brie and cranberry bites? Thank you so much!
Hi Lisa, I haven’t made them with phyllo, so I’m not sure how it would work, but you could try cutting squares of phyllo and using in place of the puff pastry.
Can I make them several hours ahead of serving? If I do, and fridge or cover them, will they get soggy?
You should be invited to evey party, since all of us use your recipes for all of them!
Haha, thanks, Peggyann! Yes, you can make them probably 3-4 hours ahead of time with good results. I’d keep them at room temperature.
Guessing this will not be a popular question! Any subs for the brie?
I have the same question.
Hi Kelly – I don’t know of another cheese that will melt with the same creaminess, but you could play around with another kind of cheese and see. Probably a semi-soft cheese would work better than a hard cheese (like Parmesan).
Simple but tastes decadent! And easy too!
How much brown sugar and salt to mix with the pecans for the sprinkle on the top? Thanks!
I just use a pinch. I’ll edit the recipe to make that more clear.
Oh these look amazing! I have two Christmas parties this week that I was planning on making your cranberry salsa and the cranberry dip with cream cheese. I love cranberry stuff!
Oh it’s like you looked in my fridge and decided to help me out.. I already have your IP cranberry sauce made up and a wheel of brie in there just waiting to be used. Yum! These look delicious!
Oh, brilliant!!
Oh! Cannot wait to make these little gems. Never before have I wanted to eat my phone because the pictures are Amazing.
Thank you for a fabulous recipe! Will give the homemade sauce a try too.