Camembert enrobed with puff pastry eaten warm from the oven is delicious, and worse still there is a compulsion to cut another slice until there is no more left. Eaten plain or with chilli crab apple jelly it makes a good starter or a replacement to a cheese board.
The riper the Camembert the runnier the finished pie. Try to avoid using a very soft Camembert because when you open the oven door you will find most of it has run out of the pie and flowed all over the baking tray. I used a young firm Camembert as I wanted to photograph it. Photography is not my strong point, and photographing my recipes seem to take longer than actually making them. I have little idea of what I am doing but have come to the conclusion that if I take enough pictures in an array of positions then there will have to be at least one reasonable picture.
Hence my choosing a firm cheese that would cope with sitting around. The Camembert didn’t last long and even though it was slightly firmer than I would have liked it was just as delicious and was given a sweet note by the crab apple and chilli jelly.
This simple little recipe was the one that finally won me my father’s praise. My father adored his food especially cheese. He would come and stay with us for a week at a time. Always keen to help with any outstanding projects. The idea was that he would work away while I stayed in the kitchen cooking up a full English breakfast, mid morning snacks, a full scale lunch, afternoon tea with cake and then supper. We loved his visits, but the kitchen was under a lot of pressure to produce and impress.
On one of my father’s visits I had been busy baking batches of fairy cakes for the expected afternoon tea slot. I had left them to cool on wire racks on the kitchen table while I answered the phone, when I returned they had disappeared into thin air. The wire racks were still there but no cakes. I rushed out into the garden and asked my father if he had eaten them (it had been known). No, so where had they gone? I looked in all the cupboards, where could I have put them? I couldn’t work out in my mind where I might have put them. It wasn’t until out of the corner of my eye I saw a tiny piece of cake paper on the floor did I realise who the culprit was – Oscar our Labrador. He had decided to wolf the lot, maybe in the faint hope that without any evidence he wouldn’t get the blame. He was sent to his bed and my father’s response was that the dog couldn’t be blamed; I shouldn’t have left them there!
My father ate everything with gusto and enjoyed what he ate but to get a rapturous response was a little more difficult. It was serving up the baked Camembert that really impressed him, he wolfed it down and was even raving about it on his way up to bed. I couldn’t believe my luck. That something so simple would be my crowning glory! He even made a point of mentioning it a couple of days later when I waved him off on the train platform. I think he wanted to make sure it was on the menu for his return visit. Little did he know it would be on every future menu!
The puff pastry can be shop bought or home made, but as always nothing really compares to home made.
Baked Camembert
Ingredients
A round of Camembert (slightly soft)
a little beaten egg
250g/9oz puff pastry
Method
Oven Gas mark 7/220C/425F
Roll out two circles of puff pastry to the thickness of a 20p piece. Making one of the circles larger by two inches. Don’t be tempted to keep the pastry thick as it will cook on the outside but leave a soggy uncooked mess on the inside.
Place the Camembert on top of the small circle of pastry and brush the edge with beaten egg.
Place the larger circle of pastry over the top of the Camembert and seal around the base using a fork. Trim to neaten.
Brush the whole pie with beaten egg and add decorations with any left over pastry if wanted, brush again with the egg and place on a baking tray.
Place in the oven for 20/25 minutes.
Ready when the pastry is golden brown.
Serve immediately on its own or with crab apple chilli jelly.
It is just as delicious cold but really needs to be eaten the same day.
Maria Dernikos 