FOOD NEWS
The Pastry Swap That Will Take Your Baked Brie Up A Notch
By Haldan Kirsch
Baked brie is an excellent, easy appetizer for all sorts of occasions and can also be customized with unique fillings to satisfy personal or seasonal tastes. Although uncommon fillings like honey or jalapeno jelly can upgrade the pastry, another way to take your baked brie to the next level requires only a simple ingredient swap.
The dish is typically a wheel of brie wrapped in a shell of puff pastry dough, but using phyllo dough instead can help elevate baked brie by changing its texture. Puff pastry adds a semi-redundant richness to this already decadent food; however, phyllo dough gives the consistency of a good crust without interfering with the cheese flavors.
While the two doughs may seem very similar, slight differences make phyllo and puff pastry stand apart from one another. Rather than using butter like puff pastry, phyllo dough utilizes oil, giving it a slightly different texture. Phyllo also has the distinct advantage of being more forgiving, allowing one to simply layer over any rips to seal it once again.