Perfect Baked Brie in Filo for a Party: Webisode #51 & Holiday Camera Giveaway!
What’s Going on Today: Preparing for daughter’s birthday party while she naps.
Naptime Goals: Set-up the birthday cake, popcorn, spiced up chex mix, cheeses, dip, cookies, lollipops, smoked salmon and baked brie.
Today’s Menu: See above: a mix of kid food and adult food to please everyone attending. Bar stocked with Champagne, beer, wine & sodas!
Parenting Lesson of the Day: Little kids will never know if you forget to put out the cocktail napkins!
While we were in Cooperstown for Thanksgiving we celebrated my daughter’s birthday. I can’t believe how quickly time has flown, it seems like just yesterday we brought her home! Reflecting on how quickly she has grown nearly brought tears to my eyes, but just nearly. This year there was no time for crying, we had a party to throw! I filmed the whole ordeal and made it into a great webisode and while I was doing so decided to give away a camera for my holiday giveaway #4. For details on how to enter to win a Kodak Zx1 Pocket Video Camera (courtesy of moi, this is not a sponsored giveaway) see details at the end of this post.
Luckily, my parents are expert party-throwers and weren’t at all daunted at my request we throw a proper party on the actual day of her birthday. In fact, they embraced it wholeheartedly. There was coordinated decor (light blue, per my daughter’s request), a terrific menu and loads of good friends. They even commissioned a special “blue lollipop birthday cake” since that is what she so desperately wanted. My contribution to the party was the creamy baked brie with jam and almonds. It’s is my favorite go-to holiday appetizer that is an absolute snap to make. I prepared it while my daughter napped and popped it in the oven right before the party that evening!
With all the upcoming holiday events it is crucial everyone have some delicious appetizer recipes in their repertoire and this one is hard to beat. Simply top a round of brie with a few teaspoons of your favorite jam and a handful of sliced almonds, wrap it in a few layers of filo dough – each layer brushed with butter – and pop it in the oven to warm up. It is decadent without being too delicate, guests love to dive in and spread it on pieces of melba toast or crispy crackers. Each bite seems to satisfy all the senses at once. The sweet jam melts into the warm brie, while the almonds and filo give it a subtle buttery crunch. I know our friends were eager samplers, we went through a whole round in under an hour. Then we went through the cake in less than half that time.
To Enter to win a Kodak Zx1 Pocket Video Camera to film your own websiodes:
1) Sign up to receive my newsletter (upper left hand corner) if you don’t already.
2) Follow me on my Facebook fanpage
3) Leave me a comment telling me what you’d like to film while you celebrate the holidays this year.
4) Contest runs through Thursday December 2nd through Friday December 10th at 11:59pm ET.
Recipe
Baked Brie in Filo with Jam & Almonds
Ingredients
| 6-8 | sheets frozen Filo dough, thawed in the refrigerator |
| 2 | tablespoons melted butter |
| 1 | round brie (approximately 5-6 inches around) |
| 3 | tablespoons jam of choice (apricot, fig or cherry taste especially great) |
| 1 | tablespoon sliced almonds |
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
2. Melt the butter in the microwave and keep in a small bowl to cool.
3. On a flat surface place a single sheet of filo dough. Lightly brush it with some of the melted butter. In the center of the filo dough toss the almonds in the center, forming a circle about as wide as the brie. Top the almonds with even dollops of the jam and lightly spread the jam so that it evenly covers the almonds. Then, place the brie round on top of the jam and fold up the sides of the filo dough, followed by the ends, like you are wrapping a present. Pat around the brie so that everything is snuggly tucked in.
4. Place a second sheet of filo on a flat surface and brush it with butter. Then place the wrapped brie on top of this dough and repeat the wrapping process. Repeat this butter/wrapping procedure with the remaining sheets of filo dough. When this is complete, flip the wrapped brie so that it is seam side down in a oven-proof baker. Brush the tops and sides of the dough with the very last remaining bit of butter.
5. Bake the brie for 30 minutes, or until the filo dough is lightly browned and puffed up. Serve warm with a spreading knife and a platter of crispy crackers and toasts.
Naptime Notes
Naptime Recipe Serving ideas
The brie can easily be wrapped ahead of time and kept in the fridge until just before baking. Be sure to bring it to room temperature before baking. The brie will hold it’s shape after baking so it can be placed in a baker that is larger then the actual cheese.
Naptime Stopwatch
10 minutes for brie preparation, plus baking time.
Naptime Reviews
Last week I made this with apricot-orange jam, but nearly any kind of jam is amazing. Try a tart cherry or blackberry, or a sweet fig.
I’d like to film my kiddies in the snow!!
I would like to film my adorable nieces and nephew.
I am already a fan and I have already signed up for your newsletter. I will take 1,000,000 videos of Bean. Everyday she does something new that I know when she is married with kids I will cherish watching the silly little things she did way back when. Thanks for the WONDERFUL giveaway.
Cookie Day!!!A fun, chaotic day of cookie decorating with four kids! Much fun.
thanks! following you on facebook and signed up for newsletter!
I will take snazzy vids of the family cooking together for the holidaze!
I love Baked Brie and I will have to try this one..I have figs growing in the yard and would add those..
I am already a fan and a subscriber..love your blog and having just bought a house and combined my 5 sons and his 2 daughters I would adore having something like this to film us becoming a family..My boys have been raised out in the woods and we are adjusting to having a tv and cooking with electricity rather than wood..it has been an adventure!..We have never had something like this and what fun it would be to look back on..
Corinne
[email protected]
We are going skiing in upstate New York this holiday. I would love to film my son skiing for the first time.
Love your newsletter, blog and FB page- you have provided me with lots of great ideas!
I’m spending more than a week in the frozen tundra of North Dakota with my fiance and his family this Christmas. I would film his grandmother making Lefsa and other favorite Christmas treats so her kids, grand kids and great-grand kids can learn how to make and enjoy these Christmas goods for years to come!
Already subscribed on my Google Reader (Eagles17)!
([email protected])
My girls have never seen snow so we are going to the mountains for Christmas. It would be a blessing for it to snow and for me to capture them playing in it! I have been telling them stories about the legendary snowball fights that our family and friends would engage in. How much fun would it be for them to experience it first hand?
I follow you on FB and get your emails. I’d love to film my boys making their gingerbread houses and also try to sneak in a recording of them singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (if they see me, they’d stop). Thanks, Maureen (jnomaxx at hotmail dot com)
I receive email and follow and would love to win this for filming the grand girls at Christmas
I already follow you on FB and subscribe to your newletter!
I would love to get my nieces and nephew opening their presents! They are all finally old enough to get the excitement of opening them and new toys, so it will be a blast!
Email subscriber and FB fan ….thanks for the entry!
I would film friends gathered for Christmas dinner.
I follow you on Facebook (Cindi H.) and am an email subscriber
to your newsletter! How fun it would be to film our children and
their grandma making holiday cookies. It is a 3 year tradition, now.
Many thanks, Cindi
jchoppes[at]hotmail[dot]com
I’m already a facebook and newsletter follower, but I’d love to win! You are so sweet to do this unsponsored giveaway! I would film my boyfriend’s 90 year old grandmother making their traditional Christmas Springerle – if she would let me! 🙂
I would like to film my 15 grandchildren!
I would record young love at the holidays! It’s my daughters first serious boyfriend and it’s LOVE! Puppy love but real love. I would love to record them together and when are two family’s get together on Christmas!
The police department where I work has a program called “Santa Cops” and we deliver toys to under privileged kids in the community. I bet that would be a beautiful thing to tape, all those kids getting new and exciting toys!!
I would love to video my two kids, 3 and 1, enjoying Christmas and helping me make waffles after we open presents!
I would film my family!
I am a newsletter follower, and it would be nice to win so I could film my little boy and his first Christmas/birthday party this year and later show it to my parents when we’ll visit them in Europe.
Anyways, thank you for a wonderful blog and Happy Holidays!
I’d like to follow my two boys as we get closer to Christmas. Their energy about the holidays is frenetic, and surely worth capturing to torture them in the future. Rehearsal dinner fodder, perhaps.