Bacon & Cranberry Baked Camembert Bread
I recently had to make the famous Camembert Hedgehog by Twisted Food for an article, and since then I've had a small obsession with baking camembert. So, when Aldi asked me to come up with a quick festive recipe, I knew what I had to do: bake that bad boy with the Christmassy flavours of caramelised onion, bacon and cranberry and put it all in one of their nice breads. YES.
Here's what you'll need:
Grill three or four rashers of the streaky bacon and pop the oven on.
First, you'll need to prepare the bread. Slice it in a criss cross fashion and don't worry too much about the middle part.
Next, using the camembert as your guide, hollow out the centre of the bread to an appropriate depth. Cut the rind off the top of the cheese and criss cross it to encourage the melting cheese to spill out.
Now, the flavours of your filling really are up to you. I was desperate to get my hands on the truffle brie Aldi will be doing in time for Christmas - I tried it at their press preview and it was amazing, way better than the Waitrose one I've also had (for a lot more £££). Imagine that melted all over some sourdough...
They've also got some nice ready-topped camembert for baking, but it's a lot more fun to do it yourself.
A handful of cranberries should do it. Stick them all over the cheese willy nilly.
Add a few dollops of this rather nice Caramelised Red Onion Chutney intermittently over the bread, stuffing it down into the cracks for extra yumminess.
Finally, top it all off with your nice crispy bacon.
Wrap it loosely in foil and whack it in the oven for 15-20 minutes, et voila.
You can thank me later :)
I'm eating this right now with a glass of their very reliable £4.39 Pinot Noir.
PS. Aldi kindly sent me a voucher to cover the cost of ingredients for this post, but it is not paid-for. Keep an eye out for that truffle brie. Oh, and they've got those brilliant serrano ham legs with the stand and knife for an absolute barg too - the mini one is £12.99.