It’s so easy to prepare an elegant and unfortunately rather forgotten dish, Camembert en croûte, for a cosy evening. Baked, slightly runny camembert filled with potatoes and bacon, or mushrooms, and/or onions. Or you can opt for a sweet version with fig jam or fruit chutneys – and maybe some nuts?
This dish gives you so many options and is so easy to prepare, yet it is widely unknown. We are happy to help change the latter. We just recommend that you don’t make it for lunch or try to exercise afterwards.
You don’t need much. We bought small camembert weighing about 150 g each, which is absolutely enough for one person. Otherwise you can share a larger one.
We boil potatoes in salted water for about 25 minutes. We fry the bacon strips until crispy brown. Mushrooms are just as delicious, sautéed in a hot pan without fat so that they lose their liquid and concentrate their flavour.
Thyme is very important, as it harmonises perfectly with both the mushrooms and the bacon.
Place the Camembert in the freezer for at least 10 minutes, the firmer it is, the easier it is to slice. This is virtually impossible at room temperature. Then cut the cheese in half crosswise.
Cut the boiled potatoes into 3 – 4 mm slices and cover one half of the cheese with them. Then season with ground pepper, a pinch of salt and, above all, thyme leaves.
Next, add mushrooms or bacon, depending on taste.
Now place the other half of the Camembert on top and we recommend putting it back in the freezer immediately. A difference of just a few degrees makes preparation much easier.
The puff pastry should also be kept in the fridge until the last minute. If it gets too warm, it becomes too soft, sticks to everything and is quickly ruined.
Spread out the pastry and use a ruler to cut thin strips of about 2 mm from the shorter side for later decoration. Carefully place these strips of dough on a large plate so that they do not touch each other and store them in the fridge. If you don’t have the time or inclination for such frivolities, skip it.
As we are working with two small Camembert, divide the remaining dough into two roughly equal halves. Put one back in the fridge and place the first filled Camembert on the other. Then cut into the dough all the way round, starting about as far from the edge of the Camembert as it is thick. Remove the outer corners of the pastry to give it a slightly rounder shape. The leftover dough can also be used for decorating.
Then we place a strip of pastry over the Camembert after the other and thus wrap it up. The strips will overlap on the top, of course. Where the dough becomes too thick, cut off some of it. Carefully press the dough together and form a tight, closed parcel. Only the puff pastry should be visible on the outside. Then turn the whole thing over so that the nice side is facing upwards.
Put the Camembert back in the fridge to chill the dough again. During this time, process the second portion in the same way.
Preheat the oven to 200 °C without fan. As so often, we bake on a silicone mat.
If you want to decorate the pastry, you can now let loose. Gently score the puff pastry with the blunt back of a knife without cutting through it unintentionally. The patterns emerge beautifully during baking. You can also cut scraps of pastry, for example, and then score them so that they look like little leaves or flowers.
Separate an egg and dilute the yolk with a teaspoon of water, then brush the parcels with it. We decorate with the strips of pastry that we cut and saved at the beginning, they stick to the egg-coated surface. After decorating, we brush everything again.
The baking time is around 25 minutes. From minute 20 onwards, you should check how the dough is developing. Once it is golden, remove the parcels from the oven and leave them to cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes, preferably 15 minutes. Otherwise the inside is far too hot and runny to be enjoyed.
We always serve with salad.
Enjoy.
And may the taste be with you.
Ingredients (for 2 people):
2 small Camembert (approx. 150 g each) or one large one to share
1 packet of puff pastry (usually the size of a baking tray and weighing 275 g)
2 – 3 small potatoes, boiled
1 good handful of mushrooms or 80 grams of bacon
Black pepper and very little salt
Thyme
1 egg
What also goes well:
Roasted onions
Nuts
Sweet variations with fig jam or fruit chutneys
