In the end, this is simple because the brie is baked in a dish made of sourdough bread! For even simpler preparation, you could omit the topping and use a sweet chutney instead. In order to expedite the cooking process (I couldn’t wait for it to be done!) I microwaved the finished dish for a few minutes.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 20 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 shallots, thinly sliced
- 2 pears – peeled, cored and sliced
- ⅓ cup dry white wine
- ½ teaspoon brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 (8 ounce) round loaf sourdough bread
- 1 (8 ounce) round Brie cheese
- ½ cup slivered almonds
- Assorted crackers
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add shallot; cook and stir for 1 minute to soften. Add thinly sliced pears; cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Pour in white wine, brown sugar, thyme, salt, and pepper; increase heat to medium-high and simmer until the liquid has evaporated, and the pears have lightly caramelized, about 10 minutes. Set aside.
- Cut a Brie-sized hole in the top of the sourdough bread to within 1/2-inch of the bottom. Cut the removed bread into pieces for serving, set aside. Score the Brie around it’s edge, using a paring knife to cut 1/4-inch deep. Cut in half by looping an 18-inch piece of very thin string, or unflavored dental floss around the scored Brie and pulling the ends in opposite directions.
- Place the bottom half of the Brie, cut-side-up, into the sourdough loaf. Top with 1/2 of the pear mixture and sprinkle with 1/2 of the slivered almonds. Place the remaining brie half on top, spread with remaining pear mixture, and sprinkle with remaining slivered almonds. Place on a baking sheet.
- Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes or until soft and gooey. Serve with sliced sourdough bread and crackers.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 417 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 43 g |
| Cholesterol | 32 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 13 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 650 mg |
| Sugars | 8 g |
| Fat | 21 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This is the first time I have made this recipe but the third time I’ve had the pleasure of tasting it. I doubled the amount of wine therefore it was on the stove top about 3 minutes longer. I also baked the mixture in a clear casserole dish as my home baked sourdough was still too warm to slice into. I personally know how this dish tastes when melted inside the bread. Next time I’ll make my sourdough bread a day ahead. The party guests are still talking about the “Brie” dish I brought to the party.
Really good. I made without the bread and served with toasted french bread slices. Looked very elegant and was not sweet at all.
Best Brie I’ve ever made. The flavors came together wonderfully and it went in record time.
This was crazy good! I didn’t have shallots so I just used some slices of red onion. I used walnuts because that’s what I had on hand. I used a loaf of chiabatta and sliced it so it would be pull apart bread, brushed it with olive oil, minced garlic, and herbs. I placed it in a casserole dish and baked covered for about a half hour. The flavor were so complex with the white wine and butter. The whole thing was gone in 10 minutes!
Have made this recipe as is several times & it’s delicious!
This was a lot of work to end up being just ok. I felt that the brie and filling were overwhelmed by the bread. The ratio was off; I would suggest using the puff pastry instead. We couldn’t figure out how to eat it, so we just sliced it – extra bread/crackers definitely weren’t needed.
The pears were too sweet and I think it would have been the case even if less sugar was added. The suggestion given to me was maybe try it with something else, even canned potatoes, or put the pears with something else. I”ll pass on this one
Love this recipe! Served it at the holidays and it was a huge hit. It is very mild and creamy. It appealed to everyone at the party from kids to adults. I made it slightly sweeter by increasing the brown sugar to 1 tablespoon, and added some dried cranberries to give it a more festive look. I cut the top rind off of the brie to remove some of the musty flavor that can sometimes be present. Finally I reduced the baking time to about 25 minutes. Delicious!!!
I m not a big fan of thyme and still really liked it
This was pretty good. Maybe I’m not a huge fan of thyme as a spice, that’s all. The bread and brie were delicious and caramelized shallots and pears are always tasty. (If you don’t have shallots, you can totally use a regular spanish onion.)
I really liked this recipe. But I made some changes: I increased the amount of thyme and didn’t put it in the bread. It turned out delicious and saucy.
This is amazing! I needed a bigger bread bowl and used a 16 oz size to fit all the melty brie and pears. I will definitely make this again
AWESOME RECIPE!!! This was soooo YUMMY. Bought it to a friend’s house and it was GONE in no time. Did not make any changes to the main ingredients, but I did use a puff pastry instead of the bread. This one is a keeper!
This was good, but not as good as I thought it would be. I wrapped the brie and the filling in puff pastry. With the thyme and the pear flavors, tastes very much like an apple stuffing at Thanksgiving. I did find that the flavors got a little muddled. Have to say, the baked brie with rosemary and cherries is by far the best baked brie on Allrecipes.
Didn’t like this at all.
I’ve made this a couple of times now, and it is absolutely wonderful! The only thing I changed was I wrapped the brie in puff pastry to make a brie en croute, and I think I used chopped walnuts instead of the almonds. Delicious!
I tried to do this with puff pastry, rather than bread and the Brie “exploded” and melted all over the cookie sheet. So then, I remade the pear mixture and just heated a new wheel of brie and spooned the pear over top – it was really good! Also, I used dried thyme instead of fresh – a little less than 1/4 tsp. I will try this with the bread very soon!
This was so good and very easy to prepare. My BF fixed it as an appetizer for a dinner party! It was a hit with everyone.
can be done w/o almonds.
I wrote the review on 1/12/09. If you use the puff pastry idea, it works best to bake in a Pyrex pie plate as one reviewer noted, it may “explode” on a baking sheet. Just let it cool for say 15 minutes before transferring to you serving plate and it will be fine. Still one of our favorite appetizers! Bon Appetit! 944TURBO
This was one of the best recipes I have tried off this site. I used raspberry reisling for the wine because it is what I had on hand and it gave the pears a great sweet flavor that balanced well. This was gone fast!