Delicious Brie cheese stuffed inside bite sized pieces of buttery and golden croissant dough, topped with cranberry sauce, crushed walnut, fresh thyme and drizzled honey. These tasty bites melt in your mouth and are a total show stealer. With only a few ingredients you can whip up these little puff pastry parcels with ease. Super easy appetizers everyone will love!
These Cranberry Brie Bites are the perfect holiday appetizers! Pillowy crescent dough is crowned with creamy brie cheese and tart cranberry sauce for a flavor explosion in every bite. Super simple to make, they look and taste gorgeous!
Looking for more appetizers? Why not also try my Cheesy Broccoli Bites and my Crispy Baked Potato Skins!
Why you’ll love these Baked Cranberry Brie Bites
- Loaded with brie. Each bite is topped with a cube of creamy, melty brie.
- An easy appetizer. This is a low maintenance appetizer. Made with a handful of ingredients these little beauties come together in less than 30 mins.
- Crowed pleaser: A party appetizer that’s a crowd pleaser. It will become your favorite holiday appetizer for parties and much more.
- Topped with tangy cranberry sauce. If you don’t have jarred cranberry sauce you simple whip some up with my Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce recipe. Either way….delicious!
Ingredients For Brie Bites
- Crescent Sheet: I used store bought Pillsbury crescent sheets. You can also use puff pastry sheets if you like.
- Brie– I used Kirkland’s since I already had that but Presidents’ Brie cheese also works.
- Unsalted Butter-since the dough is a bit savory, I prefer using unsalted butter.
- Cranberry Sauce– Store bought or Homemade Cranberry Sauce works.
- Thyme or Rosemary– I used thyme, but I have also used Rosemary many time. So whatever you have on hand.
- Walnuts– I like walnuts so I used that, but you can also use pecans if you don’t like walnuts.
- Honey (optional)- I love drizzling honey on this recipe. It’s the perfect additions to it. But if you are allergic, you can skip it.
How to Make Cranberry and Brie Bites
- Prep the pastry: Cut the crescent sheet roll into 1.5-2 inch squares, for 12 even pieces. Then place into a greased mini muffin tin pan.
- Brie portions: Cut the brie cheese into mini portions.
- Layer the topping: top each pastry piece with cubed brie, cranberry sauce, herbs and crushed walnuts.
- Bake: Cook in the oven for 12 mins at 375F.
- Allow to cool, serve and enjoy!
Tips to Make the Best Cranberry Brie Bites
- Use a preheated oven.
- Put the brie in the freezer for 15 mins before adding to the pastry. Slightly frozen brie is much easier to cut into even cubes.
- Aim to cut your crescent squares into similar sizes, for even cooking.
- Be sure to grease your muffin tin with butter for easy bite removal!
- If you would rather not use cranberry sauce, you can use any flavored jelly instead.
- When the sides of the croissant dough are golden on the sides and the center cheese has melted, they’re done!
- If you don’t like nuts or even herbs, you can simply take those off.
- Top with a drizzle of honey for a lovely balance of sweetness.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes indeed! In fact they’re great make ahead appetizers, freeing you up for enjoying the party! Just fully assemble the Brie Bites in the muffin pan, and refrigerate them unbaked for up to 3 days before baking.
Cook the Brie Bites as the recipe directs then allow to cool completely. Spread the bites in a single layer on a baking sheet, and place in the freezer until solid. You can then store the frozen bites in a single layer in an airtight freezer-safe container for up to 2 months. When you’re ready to serve, reheat directly from frozen in a preheated 350 F oven until heated through. You can also under bake them by just a little too so when you reheat them, they don’t over cook.
Store leftovers in an airtight storage container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Yes, I recommend if you are wanting to swap the crescent dough, the best choice would be using puff pastry sheet.
You do not need to remove the rind before baking the Brie bites. They are edible, but if you prefer to cut the rind off, you can, and that also makes the interior cheese mixture have a smoother and creamier texture.
Place bites in a muffin tin and bake at 350 F until warmed through. You can also serve these bites at room temperature.
Brie Bites Variations
You can mix things up with these little pastry appetizers!
- Top with different nuts: sub in your favorite nut. Almonds, pecans or pistachios would work great.
- Use different herbs: rosemary or thyme are the best for this recipe.
- Flavored Jelly: Use different flavored jams, like orange marmalade, fig jam, raspberry jam or pepper jelly.
- Dough: If you don’t have crescent or puff pastry dough, you can use mini phyllo cups.
Other appetizers to try
- Air Fryer Chicken Wing Recipe
- Buffalo Cauliflower Wings
- Avocado Egg Rolls
- Lebanese Spinach Pies
- Baked Brie Cranberry Bread Bowl
I hope you enjoy all the recipes I share with you, including this Cranberry Brie Bites recipe. I hope you try it, enjoy it, rate it and share it with your friends and family!
If you try this recipe and liked it, please leave a star rating and comment below. Use my hashtag to share it with me on Instagram so I can see your delicious recreations! Also, follow me at Cookin’ With Mima on FACEBOOK |INSTAGRAM |PINTEREST for all of my latest social posts and recipes.
Cranberry and Brie Bites
Equipment
- Mini muffin tin pan
Ingredients
- 1 tub Crescent Sheet roll or puff pastry sheet cut into 2 inch squares
- 6 oz. Brie cheese cubed
- 1 tbsp. unsalted butter softened
- ⅓ cup cranberry sauce about 1 tbsps. per piece
- 1 tsp. fresh thyme or rosemary finely chopped
- ¼ cup walnuts crushed
- 2 tbsps. honey optional for topping drizzle
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degree F.
- Grease the 12 piece non-stick mini muffin tin pan with butter.
- Cut the crescent sheet into 1.5-2 inch squares. The whole sheet should be cut evenly into 12 pieces.
- Cut the brie cheese into 1 inch cubes.
- First, place each crescent dough piece into the individual muffin tins. Add a piece of brie cheese, top with the cranberry sauce and add the herbs and crushed walnuts on top.
- Bake in the oven for 12 minutes of until the sides on the crescent dough is golden on the sides and the center cheese has melted.
- Remove from the oven and let it cool for a couple of minutes. If you wish to drizzle some honey before serving you can do that now.
- Serve and enjoy!
Video
Notes
- Use a preheated oven.
- Put the brie in the freezer for 15 mins before adding to the pastry. Slightly frozen brie is much easier to cut into even cubes.
- Aim to cut your crescent squares into similar sizes, for even cooking.
- Be sure to grease your muffin tin with butter for easy bite removal!
- If you would rather not use cranberry sauce, you can use any flavored jelly instead.
- When the sides of the croissant dough are golden on the sides and the center cheese has melted, they’re done!
- If you don’t like nuts or even herbs, you can simply take those off.
- Top with a drizzle of honey for a lovely balance of sweetness.
Another easy solution for feeding many, nice presentation and very adaptable.
Thanks for the review Sheri!
Crazy question, regular muffin pan or mini muffin pan? thanks
Sorry for the delayed response! they are mini muffin tins. I will update the post soon to reflect that.
I made these last Christmas and will be making them again this Christmas! We absolutely loved and devoured them! They were simple to make and made a great show as they are pretty on the table. Kinda makes it look like you worked hard on them 🙂 Thanks for your fantastic recipe.
Hi Joanne,
Happy to hear that. Thanks for leaving a review.
I made these for Christmas and we really enjoyed them. The only thing I would do differently is that I decided on the option of using fruit jam instead of cranberry sauce. They ended up a bit too sweet and would have preferred the tartness of the cranberry sauce as in the original recipe. Probably would get 5 stars with the cranberry. These were quick and easy but looked really classy. I am grateful that the first reviewer asked the question about making ahead of time because an hour before we left for my daughter’s I made them. covered with saran wrap and then popped them in the oven when we arrived. None the worse for the delay in baking.
Hi Eileen!
Thanks for leaving a review! Glad they worked out good for you.
Wow!!! Some novice cooks on this or what???
Hi Michael!
Thanks for your review!
I printed this recipe and the first quarter of the page was empty. I think who ever formats your web page should do a sample printout before posting the recipe.
Hey Paul,
I am so sorry that happened to you. Every site show up differently on different computers and I have no control over how it will print the blog feed area itself. That’s why I have the print recipe button and that should take you to a completely new page to print out the recipe card itself.
I’m sorry to say that I do not have an oven that will allow you to bake a dish wrapped in Saran wrap. Did you possibly mean aluminum foil?
Hi Sharon,
I am a bit confused. I can’t see to find the part where you are referring to. No saran wrap is safe in any oven, I wouldn’t use that. I didn’t use aluminum foil for this recipe either. Can you please refer me to where you are talking about?
If I make these the night before to bring to a work party the next day, how should it be eaten? Room temperature? Or would they need to be heated back up? Thank you!
Hi Vi,
I personally recommend making them sometime before you go or the day of. You can prepare everything the night before in the muffin pan, wrap up with a saran wrap and then pop them in the oven say before you get yourself ready. Set a timer. They literally need about 12-15 minutes of baking time. This way you can take them fresh, crispy and the cheese will still be soft. But if you must bake them the night before, you need to store in an air tight container and reheat in the oven at 350 for 5 plus minutes or so before serving again to melt the cheese because it will get hard when cold. So I would personally do the first option I gave.
Brie is never a “hard” cheese. It’s classically spreadable at room temperature. I love this recipe, and even though they’d be most scrumptious heated, I believe it would be fine to serve them at room temperature.
Hi Edward,
I definitely know what brie is and it’s softness :). I didn’t mean hard as in hard cheese but rather meant that it wont be soft and gooey if it gets cold. And when you melt the brie and refrigerate it, it wont be as soft as what it was in it’s original state. Thanks for the comment though this way others will understand what I meant.