Puff Pastry Bites are a quick and easy recipe that make the most delicious appetizer! These pepper jelly bites use only 3 ingredients and take 12 minutes to cook. They are cheesy delicious with a sweet and spicy note. Better yet the pepper jelly tarts need only minimal effort and deliver both taste and texture. This brie and pepper jelly appetizer is a must have up your sleeve for the festive season so you can whip it out as needed.
Recipes like the Brie Cranberry Tarts, Cranberry Brie, Microwave Brie and the Baked Brie with Honey celebrate the joy that is brie cheese!
The Cream Cheese Pepper Jelly and Baked Brie With Red Pepper Jelly honour the delight that is pepper jelly or chilli jam!
Jump to:
🤍 Recipe Highlights
I have summarised everything that you will come to know and love (LOVE ❤) about the puff pastry cheese bites recipe in the points below:
- Simple ingredients: you will be able to get everything you need to make this recipe from your local grocery store. We only need 3 ingredients for the cheese puff pastry bites (4 if you want to garnish them 😍👌).
- Fun: these puff pastry bites are the type of food that denotes fun, party time, having a good time and appeal to a wide range of people.
- Easy to make: I think almost everyone owns a mini muffin pan and that is what we need to make these brie bites. We take basic steps and the recipe comes together with ease.
- Food for entertaining: throughout the festive season be it Thanksgiving or Christmas, we all need some appetizers that we can whip out as needed. These pepper jelly bites have a festive touch to them and are an excellent choice when entertaining guests.
- Finger food: this cute pepper jelly appetizer can be held in one hand and is a 1-2 bite food. This keeps the other hand free for a festive drink or hand to shake others with.
🥗 Ingredients
The photo below is to show you everything you need to make the brie cheese bites recipe. Please refer to the printable recipe card for specific ingredient measurements as well as detailed instructions.
As you can see the recipe calls for:
- Pepper jelly: pepper jelly or chilli jam. This is a sweet and sticky condiment that pairs exceptionally well with cheese. You will find it in the supermarket aisle with the mint sauces and relishes.
- Brie cheese: we use a standard wheel of brie cheese. Using a knife and chopping board we cut this into small pieces and add these pieces both to the raw pastry as well as using some to decorate the puff pastry bites.
- Puff pastry: this freezer pantry staple is super handy to have tucked away in there so that you can whip it out as needed. It is economical, easy to use and flaky delicious.
😉 Substitutions and Variations
Here are my sub ins and outs that you might be thinking about as you read the post and I will tell you if I think they will work or why they won't:
- You can use cranberry sauce in place of the pepper jelly if you wish too.
- For the cheese you can use camembert in place of the brie if you want to.
🍳 Instructions
Here are the step by step instructions to make the recipe. We start by preparing the muffin tin.
- Grease 2 x 24 hole mini muffin pans (Photo 1)
- Cut the pastry into circles (Photo 2)
- Place the cut pastry circles onto the muffin tin (Photo 3)
- Push the pastry into the holes (Photo 4)
👩🍳 How to Make Puff Pastry Bites
To make the puff pastry bites, we start by greasing 2 muffin pans and then preparing the pastry.
After you have liberally sprayed the muffin tins, set them aside. Next working one sheet at a time, lay a thawed sheet of puff pastry onto a clean and dry chopping board.
Then use a 6cm (2.25 inch) cookie cutter to slice the pastry into small circles. You want to end up with 48 of these circles. You will need 4-6 square sheets of puff pastry to do this.
Next place the cut circles of pastry onto the greased muffin tins. Then use a push and twist technique to push the pastry into the holes and twist it to have it form mini cups like you see in the photos above.
Once done, use a mini fork to prick the base of each of the pastry cups. Next place a small piece or 2 of the cut brie cheese into the base of the muffin tin.
- Pierce with fork (Photo 5)
- Add pieces of cut brie cheese (Photo 6)
- Cook for 12 minutes then remove and cool (Photo 7)
- Add pepper jelly to each of the pastry bites (Photo 8)
Next, we cook the puff pastry bites. To do this place the muffin tins into the oven on the middle shelf and the one below it and set the timer for 12 minutes. Let the brie bites cook and once the cook time is up use an oven mitt to remove the muffin tins from the oven.
Place these onto a wire cooling rack and let them cool for a couple of minutes. Then use a teaspoon to gently push out each of the cooked puff pastry bites and return them to the wire cooling rack.
Next spoon ½ a teaspoon of the pepper jelly onto each of the pastry bites. Now you can get ready to serve these tasty treats and see how quickly they vanish!
🍽 Serving Suggestions
When it comes to serving your brie cheese bites, I like to garnish them with some fresh thyme leaves. This is optional and if you want to skip this step you can (3 ingredients remember 😂).
If however, you are open to the addition of the herb remove the leaves from the sprigs and sprinkle them over the top.
The other thing that you can do if you choose to is to add some of the leftover pieces of brie cheese to the top of the bites like you see below.
👍 How to Guide
How to Store
If you are not wanting to serve the puff pastry brie bites straight away, transfer them to a sealed, air tight container and pop them in the fridge. Then when ready to serve them, remove them from the refrigerator and add the pepper jelly.
Can I Freeze These Puff Pastry Bites
These mini brie bites are delicate with flaky pastry. For that reason, I don't recommend freezing the pastry bites. My recommendation is to make and serve soon after!
How To Reheat
I have tried to reheat these pastry bites in the microwave in 5 second increments. To be honest, I don't think it makes that much difference. They don't really need to be 'super hot' to be delicious. But fresh is best!
So I think you are best making these and serving them without trying to freeze or reheat.
💡 Tasty Tips
Here are my top tips and tricks that I want to share with you so that you master the recipe from the get go:
- Be liberal when spraying the muffin tin with cooking spray. This will ensure that your pastry bites will easily come out of the muffin pan and won't stick.
- I have tried this recipe both with adding the pepper jelly before cooking and after. Before cooking leaves us with a bit of a wet sticky mess with undercooked pastry. After resolves this issue as well as allowing the red pepper jelly to shine like the bright star that it is!
- Use the back of a spoon to push some of the cooked pastry back down to allow you to add the pepper jelly if they are oval shape at the top and puffed up.
- Ensure that the oven is preheated and at the right temperature before adding the muffin pans. This lets the brie bites start cooking straight away as the oven is already hot plus it allows you to easily follow the specified cook time for the recipe.
- Do you love cheese based appetizers? Then you might also like the Baked Feta With Honey 😉👌.
🤓 Frequently Asked Questions
This depends on the recipe. For some recipes it is necessary to blind bake the pastry so that it cooks through before adding the filling. For small bites like sausage rolls and tarts, it is generally not necessary to cook the pastry first.
Using cooking spray to spray the baking tray or muffin pan is the best way to ensure that the pastry won't stick to the pan.
Yes. Brie bites can be eaten cold. After removing them from the oven they can be filled with jam or jelly and then served. Or if you are looking to serve them the next day, keep them in the fridge and then serve them cold.
Yes, you can. Simply use a sharp knife to cut the pastry into squares. As an example a regular square puff pastry cut be cut into 12 or 16 equal squares.
😍 More Easy Appetizer Recipes
Party food! It is the best thing about the party right 😍😂. Here are some more ideas to keep your party finger food game strong (and game on 😂):
- Caramelised Onion Sausage Rolls
- Tater Tot Cups
- Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Bites
- Crumbed Mushrooms
- Stuffed Scallops
- Cheese and Bacon Pinwheels
- Chicken Ribs
- Caramelised Onion Tarts
- Air Fryer Breaded Mushrooms
- Goat Cheese Stuffed Dates
It is time to get our puff pastry bites on my friend! You can also find all of my appetizer recipes, Christmas recipes or dips and spreads recipes in the one spot.
Adrianne
PIN and save this recipe for later!
Hunger still got you? You can SUBSCRIBE to receive the latest recipes, follow me on Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook.
📖 Recipe
Puff Pastry Bites
Ingredients
- 4 - 6 sheets puff pastry thawed, Note 1
- 200 grams/7 oz wheel brie cheese cut into small pieces, Note 2
- ½ cup pepper jelly Note 3
To serve (optional):
- thyme sprigs removed
- brie cheese leftovers from above
Instructions
- Grease: use a can of cooking spray to grease 2 x 24 cup mini muffin tins.
- Pastry: working one sheet at a time lay a thawed piece of puff pastry onto a chopping board and then use a 6cm (2.2 inch) mini cookie cutter to cut 12 rounds of pastry from it. Place these onto the top of the greased muffin tin. Then repeat so that you have 48 rounds of cut pastry.
- Muffin tin: push the raw pastry into the holes then twist up to have them form cup shapes. Then use a fork to lightly pierce the base of each pastry cup. Repeat for both muffin tins.
- Brie cheese: add 1-2 small pieces of the cut brie cheese into the centre of each of the pastry cups. Repeat for each muffin hole.
- Bake: place the muffin tins into the oven on the middle and lower shelf. Cook the puff pastry bites for 12 minutes (up to 14 for the tin on the lower shelf) and once the cook time is up, use oven mitts to remove the muffin tins from the oven and place them onto a cooling rack. Let the bites cool for a couple of minutes and then use a teaspoon to gently push them out of the tin and rest them back onto the cooling rack.
- Pepper jelly: next take a teaspoon and dollop a small amount (½ teaspoon or less) into the centre of each pastry bite.
- To serve: sprinkle the thyme leaves over the top and add any remaining pieces of brie onto the top of the pepper jelly.
Notes
- Note 1 - Puff pastry: we want the pastry to be soft and easy to work with without it cracking when we are trying to cut it. So grab it out of the fridge as a starting point so that it will be ready to go when you are up to that step. Also re the quantity - I use 4 sheets but it is not an exact science. So I am giving you a bit of extra room re 4-6 sheets so that if you need it you have enough for the 48 muffin tin holes.
- Note 2 - Brie cheese: we want to cut the wheel of brie into at least 48 pieces. This is easy if you keep the pieces small and cut larger pieces in half. I start with the whole wheel and cut that into half then quarters then I cut each of the quarters into smaller pieces. Having some of these leftover means that as well as baking the brie into the pastry, you can also pop some on top when you are serving the appetizer.
- Note 3 -Pepper jelly: you can use any flavor your like! Aussies - you are looking for 'chilli jam'. It is with the relishes and pickles, onions and vinegars in the supermarket. You can also use cranberry sauce if you are looking for an alternative.
Belinda says
I like the idea of these. They look easy and tasty.
Adrianne says
Thanks Belinda 😄.