cranberry brie crostini

Crunchy bread, creamy brie, saucy cranberries. Merry Christmas to your tastebuds.

What a fucken festive final recipe before Christmas arrives! This day, Monday, I needed a fast appetizer to complete my 2024 menu, and for awhile I had the image of a toasty crostini in my head.

This baby is the result of transferring the image in my head to paper. Well, virtual paper.

The easiest holiday appetizer, these Cranberry Brie Crostini are as simple as can be but pack a huge wallop of tasty. I’ve featured the cranberries in my One Skillet Cranberry Braised Salmon and my Honey Whipped Feta and Cranberry Crostini, both of which are heavily popular this time of year. The red wine and cider simmer combo provides a luscious, gently spiced backdrop and a faintly edgy booziness, and the berries are sweetened just enough with brown sugar to remove the aggressive tartness they bear.

In around 30 minutes you’ll behold these gorgeous nibbles that guests will surely swipe from the table. Unless they think they’re too pretty to eat. I could see that. But I think the melted cheese will beckon them.

Cran Clan

This recipe can come with some clever multitasking. So let’s start with toasting the bread.

I usually prefer to broil crostini, but since I wanted to break both legs at once (that is not the expression but I said it anyway), I decided on a slower bake to toast the bread slices so I could also concentrate on the cranberry sauce simultaneously. Broiling is sketchy sometimes. Look away for 1 second too long and you’ll need to run and find your fire extinguisher ASAP.

I like a nice loaf of ciabatta, but sourdough or baguette are fine, too. Slice it up and brush your pieces with olive oil on both side. Set on a baking sheet and toast for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden.

While you do that, make your cranberry sauce. So effortless. Melt a little butter in a skillet and toss in cranberries, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Pour in apple cider and red wine and simmer until the berries pop and softened, about 10-15 minutes depending on how reduced you want them to be. A good deal of the liquid should be boiled off by now, so you’ll be left with wonderful jammy cranberries.

Now, if you’re having trouble finding apple cider this time of year, you can use cranberry juice (also apt if you want to replace the red wine) or apple juice. Slightly different flavor profiles but still fabulous. Keep in mind that apple juice is typically sweeter than apple cider, so you can cut the sugar down a couple tablespoons to compensate if you fear the result will be too saccharine for you.

Build-A-Bread

Arranging the crostini is the final step. Woot!

Grab your wheel of brie and slice into strips. Place a piece onto each crostini and transfer the tray to the oven for a few minutes to soften the brie. You can leave it longer if you want meltier brie, but it will ooze everywhere (brie is fucking hogwild) if you get too ambitious here.

Set your crostini on a pretty platter and spoon some cranberry sauce over each. Dot with fresh thyme and a shake or two of black pepper. Beautiful, right?

No frills, just fun. I hope all of you have a safe, joyous holiday full of as much love and care as you need. And food. Hopefully, so much food – or at least one food you like most of them all, and perhaps a person you like most of them all, too, with which you can share the adventure.

Tried this recipe out? Leave a rating and comment below with your thoughts, and don’t forget to come say hi on Instagram and show me what you made!

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