Baked Garlic and Bacon Brie

I’ve a friend with a huge predilection for expensive cheeses. She is the sweetest soul and frequently drops off several rounds of artisanal cheeses every other week. But truth is that I’m a plebeian at heart and I tend to go for milder cheeses. I feed a family of 7 people and so the Asian frugal soul in me balks at buying gourmet cheeses regularly.

However, recently I discovered the magic of baking cheeses. Baking a cheese in the oven actually intensifies its flavor and you can also add more herbs or ingredients to amp up the flavor. In this recipe, I only needed a very simple appetizer for a small dinner party. I thought I had a Mont D’or cheese in my freezer but it turned out it was a fondue instead so I found a small piece of Brie cheese instead to play around with. This was a really cheap cheese but when I added roasted garlic and bacon bits, the cheese was elevated to another level of crazy flavor! I adore this combination of garlic and bacon that gives a smoky, salty, umami cheesy dip.

Kid#1 was the one who commandeered the appetizer plate. In the end because our guests came late so he took over eating up the appetizer and we steered straight to the mains when they came!

Baked Garlic and Bacon Brie

Servings: 6
Time: 1.5 hours
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

1 round of brie or camembert
1 whole head of garlic
2 slices of bacon
crudites (cut celery, carrots and cucumber)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C.
Wrap the head of garlic in aluminum foil. Lay out the bacon on baking paper on a tray.
Slice the brie horizontal into thirds. In the first layer, squeeze out the roasted garlic from the skin and arrange in one layer over the first slice of brie. Lay another slice of brie over the garlic, then arrange the bacon over the middle layer of brie. Finally top the last layer of brie over the bacon.