Is it truly the holiday season without a wheel of melty cheese? This is the best baked camembert ever: it's a fantastic appetizer baked with fresh herbs and fruity olive oil, then served with a drizzle of hot honey.
If you need a last-minute appetizer for your holiday party, my baked camembert recipe is just for you.
It's a great addition on a charcuterie board or on its own served with toasted bread. All you need to do is slice up of the top of the camembert, drizzle a little olive oil, top it with fresh rosemary and thyme, a little S+P, and bake for about 12 minutes until you have a platter of hot cheese waiting to be dipped into.
And to give it a little extra oomph, we're adding a homemade hot honey made with just three simple ingredients that can be whipped up while the camembert bakes!
So easy, right? I told you I had the perfect last-minute appetizer for you.
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What is Baked Camembert?
Baked camembert is a really easy appetizer that takes absolutely no effort, but it's one of my favorite dishes to make during the holidays.
Camembert is a creamy soft cheese made from cow's milk that originated in Normandy, France by a cheesemaker taking advice from a monk from Brie.
It's has a lot of similarities to brie cheese, with soft edible rinds and creamy texture. But camembert has a stronger flavor than brie.
Brie is mild and buttery with cream added to it for a higher fat percentage while camembert is earthy and kinda smells and tastes like mushrooms.
Camembert has a lower milk fat percentage of 45%, so when you bake camembert, it won't be as oozy and runny as baked brie.
Ingredients
Full ingredients, measurements, and printable instructions are in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Camembert Cheese - you'll usually find wheels of camembert in small wooden box at the grocery store.
Olive Oil - use a fruity extra virgin olive oil, it has plenty of flavor that plays well with the earthiness of the camembert
Fresh Herbs - I love sprinkling on a little fresh thyme and chopping up fresh rosemary before baking, then garnishing with rosemary sprigs before serving.
Black Pepper - freshly ground black pepper has vibrant essential oils that are released even more thanks to the heat of the oven.
Homemade Hot Honey
This delicious honey brings sweet and spicy to the earthy flavors of the cheese and the herbs. It's so perfect to bring a boost of complexity to
Honey - use a local honey if you can. Not only to support your local farmers but to support your immune system!
Chili Flakes.
Hot sauce - use a classic, vinegar-based hot sauce. Do not use sriracha (which is flavored with garlic) or any other hot sauce with alternative flavors.
Sea Salt - if you have a nice fleur de sel, this is the time to use it! It's the holidays, y'all. Use it to balance the sweet and spicy flavors, and to garnish while serving.
Instructions
Remove the paper wrapping from your wheel of camembert and place it back into the wooden box, if it came with one.
Place the camembert onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and use a sharp knife to slice a crosshatch pattern on top of the cheese. Cut through the rind and into the cheese for the best results.
Drizzle olive oil, fresh rosemary, thyme sprigs, and black pepper over the whole wheel, then bake in your preheated oven for 10-15 minutes. Smaller wheels (a medium sized camembert or smaller) is perfect around 12 minutes.
While the cheese bakes, whisk together the hot honey ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat until loose and liquidy, it'll only take a couple of minutes. Pour into a heat-safe container and set aside.
Serve the melted camembert warm, drizzle honey all over it, sprinkle on more herbs, and serve with your favorite white wine and toasted garlic bread crostinis.
Toppings
There are so many different ways to serve baked camembert, from sweeter toppings to savory spreads.
A few of my favorites are studding the wheel with slices of a garlic clove and topping with crumbled crispy bacon, dolloping on some homemade cranberry sauce, drizzling over sweet maple syrup for a sweet route, or adding fresh chives to my classic herb topping.
Storage and Reheating Instructions
Let the cheese come completely to room temperature before wrapping it with plastic wrap and keeping in the fridge for up to 3 days.
You can eat it cold or reheat in its wooden box or in a small dish until melty. Serve with crusty bread, fruit, and wine!
Frequently Asked Questions
Some camembert may not have a box, and that's okay! Bake the wheel of camembert in a small oven-safe dish or make a little dish out of aluminum foil to bake it in.
The rind on camembert is soft and edible, just like with brie.
You can substitute brie if you can't find camembert. Brie has a milder, sweeter, more buttery flavor than camembert's earthy flavor.
Camembert is a bloomy rind cheese, so when it's gone off it'll smell like ammonia. The rind will also start hardening around the edges, deteriorating a bit, and change in color.
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Baked Camembert with Hot Honey
Ingredients
Baked Camembert
- 1 medium Camembert cheese wheel
- ½ teaspoon fresh rosemary and thyme, chopped finely
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Hot Honey
- ¼ cup local honey
- 1 teaspoon hot sauce, more or less to taste
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt or fleur de sel
Instructions
- How to Make Baked Camembert
- Remove the paper wrapping from your wheel of camembert and place it back into the wooden box, if it came with one.
- Place the camembert onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and use a sharp knife to slice a crosshatch pattern on top of the cheese. Cut through the rind and into the cheese for the best results.
- Drizzle olive oil, fresh rosemary, thyme sprigs, and black pepper over the whole wheel, then bake in your preheated oven for 10-15 minutes. Smaller wheels (a medium sized camembert or smaller) is perfect around 12 minutes.
- Make Hot Honey
- In a small saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the honey, hot sauce, red pepper flakes, and fleur de sel until the mixture is combined and the honey has turned into a loose liquidy consistency.
- Pour the hot honey into a heat-safe container for serving.
- Serve the Baked Camembert
- Place the baked camembert on a serving platter drizzled with hot honey. Serve with toasted bread, crostinis, crackers, grapes, fruit, and your favorite white wine.
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