Brie appetizers can be served hot or at room temperature. Popular hot Brie appetizers include baked Brie, or Brie en croute, as well as Brie wrapped in phyllo dough with vegetables such as asparagus. Other common types of Brie appetizers include serving the cheese on crackers or on a sliced baguette along with accompaniments such as fruit, nuts, or meat.
Brie en croute is one popular Brie appetizer. A wheel of cheese is wrapped in frozen or home-made puff pastry and then baked. The Brie is usually topped with nuts or some sort of sauce before it is wrapped in the pastry to enhance the flavor of the cheese. Once the cheese is cooked enough, the pastry is golden brown, and the Brie is melted, the appetizer is usually served with crackers and slices of fruit.
Another hot Brie appetizer that also involves puff pastry is a pinwheel-shaped appetizer. The cheese is spread over the pastry and then topped with caramelized onions and rolled up. After chilling, the pastry log is cut into small slices that look like pinwheels. Unlike Brie en croute, the rind is removed from the cheese to make the pinwheels.
A wheel of Brie can also be baked on its own, without a pastry coating. Baking the cheese makes it soft and enhances the taste. Some people choose to top the cheese with a fruit sauce before baking it.
Small pieces of Brie can be added to the crust of mini-quiches to make a Brie-based quiche. A cook can use pre-made mini-quiche crusts, such as phyllo dough cups, or prepare her own. Wonton wrappers also make ideal mini-quiche crusts. Another appetizer option is wrapping a slice of Brie and an asparagus spear in a piece of phyllo dough and then coating the phyllo in olive oil and baking.
Slices of cheese on crackers make very simple Brie appetizers. A host can dress up the simplest of appetizers by topping the slice of Brie with an almond or fresh cranberry. Another easy room-temperature Brie appetizer involves slicing the cheese into thin slices and placing on thin slices of French bread and then topping with a drizzle of honey and freshly ground black pepper.
An open-faced Brie sandwich, or tartine, makes another lovely appetizer. The sliced Brie can be placed on baguette slices and then topped with thin slices of ham or chopped fresh tomatoes. Another option is to top the tartine with caramelized onions.