Rosemary focaccia topped with mini rounds of Brie cheese and drizzle with honey after baking. A great appetizer for entertaining!
I have been loving the little mini Brie cheese bites that are available now and I couldn’t wait to bake a few up in a focaccia. It was as fabulous as I imagined!
Ingredients and substitutions
A few notes about the key ingredients …
Bread flour – Bread flour is recommended for best results. In a pinch, all-purpose flour will work.
Mini Brie – Look for the mini Brie in the cheese section of your local grocery store. I found them in with the Babybel cheese. The brand I used is Ile de France (pictured below in the Step-by-step photos). The mini Brie rounds are 25g each and come as a package of 5. If you can’t find mini Brie rounds, you can cut some rounds from a larger piece of Brie instead.
Rosemary – Fresh rosemary and focaccia are just perfect together. Fresh thyme will also work, though I find the more tender thyme tends to scorch in the oven. I’d probably add it near the end of baking or even as a garnish after baking.
Honey – Any runny honey is fine for drizzling on this focaccia after baking.
How to make mini Brie focaccia
This is a summary of the steps to make this Brie focaccia. Always refer to the complete instructions in the Recipe Card below when making the recipe.
- Add the focaccia dough ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer.
- Mix together well. The dough will be very sticky!
- Cover the bowl with a tea towel and rest for 15 minutes, then stretch and fold the dough. Re-cover the dough and rest for another 15 minutes. Stretch and fold again, then cover and let rest for 1 hour.
- Add the oil to a skillet and use a pastry brush to brush it over the bottom and sides of the skillet or baking pan.
- Add the dough to the pan, stretch and fold the dough and roughly shape into a round. It won’t fill the pan at this point.
- Prepare the mini Brie and rosemary and set aside.
- When the dough has risen and filled the pan, oil you fingertips and make dimples in the dough with your fingers.
- After dimpling, the dough should be bubbly.
- Place the Brie rounds and rosemary leaves on the top of the dough. Sprinkle with a little coarse salt.
- Drizzle the dough with a bit more olive oil.
- The focaccia is ready for the oven!
- After baking and while still hot, drizzle with honey before removing the focaccia to a cooling rack.
What to serve with this focaccia
While lovely on its own, you could also serve this focaccia with fig jam or more simply with a shallow bowl of olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping.
Recipe tips!
- I’ve used a cast-iron skillet to bake this focaccia. My skillet is 8 inches in diameter across the bottom and 10 inches in diameter across the top. Alternatively, you could use a 9-inch round metal cake pan.
- This is a same-day focaccia recipe. If you’d like to, you can rise this dough overnight in the refrigerator. Pop the dough in the fridge, well-covered, after the stretch and folds and before adding it to the baking pan. The next day, you can place it into the baking pan to rise, but keep in mind that the cold dough will take some time to start rising, so the rise in the pan will be extended by a couple of hours. Let it rise until it fills the pan nicely.
Making ahead, storing and freezing
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Get the Recipe: Mini Brie Focaccia
Ingredients
For the focaccia dough:
- 2 cups (250 g) bread flour, spooned and levelled
- 7/8 cup (210 g) lukewarm water , about 105F
- 1 teaspoon (3.5 g) Instant yeast , *see Note 1 below for using Active dry yeast
- 1/2 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon honey or white sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon fine table salt
For the pan:
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
For topping before baking:
- 5 mini Brie cheese rounds, *see Note 2 below
- Coarse salt
- Rosemary leaves
For topping after baking:
- Runny honey, for drizzling
Instructions
- Tip! For best results, use a kitchen scale and weigh the ingredients with the weight measurements.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the kneading hook, mix together the lukewarm water, instant yeast, olive oil, honey and salt. Add the flour and stir together until well combined. The dough will be very sticky! Cover the bowl with a tea towel and let rest for 15 minutes.
- Stretch and fold the dough (*see the Notes section below for how to stretch and fold the dough). Cover the bowl again and rest for another 15 minutes. Do another series of stretches and folds. Cover with the towel again and let rise for one hour.
- Add the oil to the bottom of a 9-inch round baking pan or a 10-inch top-diameter cast iron skillet. Use a brush to spread the oil evenly over the bottom of the pan. Scrape the dough into the greased pan, then stretch and fold the dough in the pan, top over bottom, bottom over top, then flip it over so that the smooth side is up. Roughly shape the dough into a round, but don't stretch the dough to fill the pan. It will spread on its own as it rises. (**See the step-by-step photos to see how much of the pan it should fill before it rises.) Use a large baking sheet placed on top of the baking pan as a cover and let the dough rise for an hour and a half. (Alternatively, cover the baking pan with plastic wrap.)
- Use a knife to score the top of the mini Brie rounds with a hash pattern (two shallow slices horizontally and two slices vertically). Remove some rosemary leaves from the woody stem and set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 430F (non-convection/not fan-assisted).
- After the dough has risen, oil your hands and use your fingertips to make lots of dimples in the dough. Place the mini Brie rounds randomly on top of the dough, pressing them into the dough slightly. Scatter some rosemary leaves over the top of the dough. Drizzle with a bit more olive oil and sprinkle the top with a little coarse salt.
- Bake in the preheated oven 19-23 minutes or until deep golden.
- Remove from the oven and immediately drizzle the top of the focaccia with honey. Slide the focaccia out of the baking pan and onto a wire cooling rack to cool.
- Serve warm or at room temperature. This focaccia is nice as is, or serve with fig jam or balsamic vinegar and olive oil, for dipping.
Notes
More focaccia recipes to love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
This looks great but what is the weight for the Brie? “Mini Brie” doesn’t tell me enough! Thanks
The mini Brie are 25g each and the brand I used is a package of 5, for a total of 125g.