Thursday, December 31, 2009

Pecan Caramelized Brie

I made this sweet appetizer for the annual Christmas Eve brunch that my in-laws host. It's super quick and easy, and it's definitely a crowd-pleaser. Lots of people went back for seconds (including me). It was great with wheat thins, but the ginger snaps were my favorite cookie to dig into it with. I'll be making this again and again, for sure!


Ingredients:
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups pecan halves,

Directions:
Combine brown sugar, corn syrup and butter in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan set over medium heat. Stir mixture until it comes to a boil. Boil gently, without stirring, for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and (shielding hands with oven mitts) quickly whisk in baking soda. Stir in salt and pecans until mixture begins to set, about 30 seconds. Working quickly, mound warm nut mixture on top of Brie and let caramel cascade down sides of cheese.

**My notes: Don't let the baking soda step scare you. It just foams up some. if you have a deep saucepan, you will have no trouble at all. Mitts were not needed for me, but I wore them as a precaution anyway.

Brie has a rind that is soft, so it's not necessary to peel it. However, I used a paring knife to get most of it. You can do whatever suits you, though.

Source: Sugar & Spice

3 comments:

Meg said...

How wonderful this looks! We just did a sort of sweet brie with honey and pecans and dried cherries which was good but the REALLY sweet brie with brown sugar and pecans sounds wonderful, too! I guess you just can't go wrong with brie. :-)

Anonymous said...

Did you peel the rind of the Brie?

Maryanna said...

I used a paring knife to get excess rind off, but I wasn't too obsessive about it. The rind is not as waxy as other cheeses, so it's okay to leave some of it on.