There are occasions where little smokies and beer cheese dips are the perfect pairing. Like a football party. [Have you looked at the calendar lately?  Football season is upon us.  Keep those recipes on the top of the pile.]

But a bridal shower deserves an appetizer with more class.  More sophistication.  More elegance.  And there enters my Easy and Impressive Appetizers cookbook recently purchased from Pampered Chef.

Want to make your guests think you’re a genius in the kitchen?  Pick up this book, open to any page and make it.

I opted for the Honey Apple Brie Bites. There’s something about brie that makes me think high class.

The official recipe lists two steps.  But that’s assuming you’ve zested your lemon, toasted your walnuts, diced your apples and cubed your cheese.  But even with adding those steps in, it’s a pretty simple thing to throw together.

In my crazed party mode, I completely forgot about the walnuts.  But it turns out phyllo shells are really, really small.  So small, that I had to go back and cut my brie cubes in halves and quarters just to fit.

Now I’ll admit, I’m not one who likes nuts in my baked goods. I find that walnuts seem to take over in a perfectly fine brownie or in moist banana bread.  So perhaps it was my subconscious overlooking this particular ingredient.  But I honestly don’t think this recipe needed anything more than the brie and apples.  Did I mention how small those shells are?  Nuts would have just taken up space better used on apples.

Eat.  And enjoy every bite.

sam

Honey-Apple Brie Bites

1 tsp lemon zest
1 cup toasted walnuts (optional)
2 medium red apples, finely diced
1/4 cup honey
1 4-inch Brie cheese, cut into small cubes

• Preheat over to 400°F
• Combine lemon zest, walnuts (if using), diced apples and honey in a bowl and gently mix.
• Arrange phyllo cups on a large cookie sheet and place one Brie cube into each cup.  Top with a scoop of apple mixture.
• Bake 6-8 minutes or until cheese is melted.

BTS Tips:

• Phyllo shells don’t give you much room.  Dice those apples into very fine pieces.   Same goes for the Brie.
• I had a hard time getting much apple chutney on top of the brie cube, so I filled the cup with the apple mixture first and then placed the cheese on top.  This helped with monitoring the cheese melting as well.
• These little suckers were gobbled up by the ladies.  I would recommend getting 3 packages of phyllo shells.  There should still be plenty of Brie and apple mixture to use as filling.

Makes 30 cups

Recipe from Pampered Chef