Mother's Day Brie en Croute

Val, who enjoyed the Brie and Peach Até de Durazno en Croute last October, asked me a few months ago about creating a baked brie that wasn't sweet, but savory. Immediately, I thought about substituting a bruschetta topping or olive tapenade for the jam or sweet chutney that is usually found in Brie en Croute. A quick check on the Internet told me that I am not the first to think of this.

I'm an olive lover and so is Valentine, so I decided on tapenade for our Mother's Day brie-in-a-blanket. Tapenade is an olive spread from southern France, great on crackers, toast (bruschetta), or as a condiment in a veggie wrap or a cheese sandwich. Though it's readily available in stores, tapenade is also very easy (if not exactly cheap) to make at home. As with any dish, the key to success is to use only the best ingredients. The method itself is almost brainless.

Mel's Tapenade Provençal

• 2 cups pitted kalamata olives (canned ripe black olives also make a great tapenade)
• 2 tablespoons of capers, well rinsed
• 2 (or more) cloves of garlic, rough sliced
• 4 anchovy fillets (Be brave! They will not overpower the olives, I promise!)
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard (Do not use regular yellow mustard as a substitute. Skip the mustard completely if you don't have dijon.)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 5-6 sprigs fresh thyme leaves, leaves only

Even though the olives may be pitted, be sure to rough chop them with a knife or squeeze each one by hand because sometimes pitted olives contain pits. Shattered pit shards will ruin your tapenade. Trust me; I learned from experience.

Put everything into a food processor and pulse 8, 10 maybe 12 times. Do not over-process. There should be a somewhat chunky texture to the spread. And that's it. You're done!

(Note: The recipe above makes about 1 1/2 cups of tapenade. The recipe below requires only 2/3rds cup of tapenade.)

Exploded Brie En Croute with Tapenade

• 1 small wheel of brie (The "mini brie" I used today was 15oz, which was probably a bit too big)
• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry
• 2/3 cup homemade or store-bought tapenade
• 1 egg, whisked

Let the puff pastry defrost, then roll it out a bit. Trim some of the rind off the brie, then cut the wheel through the middle, so that you end up with 2 disks of cheese. Center one disk on the puff pastry. Top with 1/3 cup tapenade. Cover with the second disk of brie, spread it with the last 1/3 cup of tapenade.

Wrap the puff pastry around the cheese decoratively. Seal seams and brush the entire top and sides of the pastry with the whisked egg. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until the pastry is puffed, flaky, and golden.

This is what happens when you put too big of a brie wheel into too little puff pastry and don't seal it well or turn it over so the seams are on the bottom: It explodes in your friend's oven! (Sorry, Val!) Such things never happen on the Food Network, but they happen pretty regularly here in the real world.

The exploded Brie en Croute was a wonderful addition to our Sunday meal outside in the backyard with the dogs and sunshine and the birds (and, yes, the other humans). While it was still hot, we dipped apple slices and multi-grain chips into the molten goodness. Later, when it had cooled, we tore off bits of the olive-y, cheese-y bread to enjoy with the rest of our meal.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!