I love my air fryer and I love how quickly it cooks things relative to the oven, and these air fryer brie bites are no exception. You’ll definitely spend more time on the prep with this appetizer, but it will be well worth it.
If you do a quick Google search for brie bites, you’ll find a plethora of recipes that feature cranberry topped with a small sprig of rosemary, probably cooked in a mini muffin tin. There’s nothing wrong with those! They’re delicious. But I wanted something a little different.
The first thought I had was to swap out cranberry sauce for fig jam. If you’ve never had fig jam before it is so tasty, it’s sweet with just a hint of acidity and together with the brie… it’s a match made in heaven.
The second idea I had was to try to make these brie bites in the air fyer. Many people assume the air fryer is for frying (logical, of course) but in reality, the air fryer can do anything the oven can do. Just faster and with some slight adjustments to temperature and timing.
I knew if I was going to use the air fryer for these brie bites I wouldn’t be able to use a mini muffin tin (they do exist, I just don’t own any). So in an effort to save money, I improvised, and I think they turned out pretty beautiful! Don’t be intimidated; I will walk you through each step to making these gorgeous diamond air fryer brie bites.
How to Use Puff Pastry
Puff pastry makes these air fryer brie bites so fast and delicious, but puff pastry can also be a little intimidating to work with if you have never worked with it before. The first thing you need to know about puff pastry is to never let it get warm.
As soon as it gets warm, it will be almost impossible to work with and it will lose its flakiness when baked. So if you’re working slowly, keep the puff pastry in the refrigerator until you’re ready for it. If that means forming two pastries at a time and refrigerating the other pieces, that’s totally fine!
To defrost your pastry, move it from the freezer to the fridge about 4 hours before you need it. Some places will tell you your pastry will be thawed in 2 hours, but I find that’s usually not the case. My fridge does run cold though, so that may be why it takes longer. Ultimately, you don’t want to be under a time constraint and find your pastry isn’t thawed. So err on the side of caution.
You can keep your puff pastry thawed in the fridge for up to one day. Don’t keep it longer than that, though, as puff pastry is much better fresh.
To egg wash or to not egg wash? You can definitely egg wash your puff pastry! That’s how you’ll end up with that golden sheen that you want for many pastries. However, I didn’t egg wash these brie bites as I wasn’t looking for that same look.
Finally, whenever using puff pastry, make sure to bake it (or make it in the air fryer) at a high temperature as the steam is what makes it puff. To adapt this recipe for the oven, just reverse the rules for adapting oven recipes for air fryers. In this case, increase the temperature by about 25 degrees Fahrenheit and then increase the cooking time by about 20%. This isn’t foolproof though so if you do try the oven, make sure to periodically check on them to make sure they’re not burning
Air Fryer Brie Bites Ingredients
This recipe takes so few ingredients! Talk about a cheap appetizer.
- Brie: This is the star of the show! You probably won’t use the whole round unless you make more than one sheet of puff pastry so you could use the rest on a cheeseboard.
- Puff pastry: Make sure you buy puff pastry with all-butter. While you can use puff pastries that use oil, they won’t be as flaky and all-butter puff pastry tastes just so much better.
- Fig jam: Even though eat brie bite only has a small dollop of fig jam makes them so darn good.
How to Make Air Fryer Brie Bites
Making these tasty treats is not difficult, but does take a little bit of technical skill. Don’t worry, you can do it! I’ll walk you through the step by step.
1. Take your puff pastry out of the fridge and open it up flat. Cut into 20 squares. They don’t have to be perfect squares, but it will make them a little easier to form if they’re closer to a square than a rectangle. But they’ll still work!
2. Take your squares and turn them into a diamond shape like below.
3. Fold the bottom corner up to meet the top corner so they form a triangle.
4. Cut a slit on each side of the triangle. Make sure you leave a little bit between the two slits. If they meet the entire center of your pastry will come out.
5. Turn your pastry 90 degrees.
6. Open the squares so they’re flat. Then take the bottom corner and fold it up to the top of the inner diamond.
7. Then you’ll fold the top corner down as well forming the shape below.
8. You’ve done it! You formed the pastry. Then the easy part. Add your cube of brie and top with fig jam. Then carefully transfer to the air fryer and bake. My air fryer fit four at a time, comfortably.
Storage
These air fryer brie bites actually don’t store super well as they will become a little soggy, so I suggest eating them on the day. However, to store wrap them in foil and put them in the fridge for up to three days. You don’t want to put them in an airtight container because the condensation will make them even soggier.
Reheating
To reheat, you can pop them in the air fryer for a minute or in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until heated, around 5 minutes.
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to post it to Instagram and tag me!
Air Fryer Brie Bites
Equipment
- Air Fryer
Ingredients
- 20 .5-inch cubes of brie cheese (less than one round)
- 10 teaspoons fig jam
- 1 sheet puff pastry
Instructions
- Thaw your puff pastry for a minimum of four hours.
- Cut your puff pastry into 20 squares. Then form the diamond shapes. Detailed, step-by-step instructions above in the post.
- Top each diamond with 1/2 teaspoon and one half inch cube of brie. Depending how big you cut your squares you may need a little more or a little less.
- Bake in the air fryer at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 4-5 minutes. At 4 minutes check if you want them browned for another 1 minute. Since my air fryer could fit 4 brie bites at a time, it took me 5 rounds to bake all 20 bites.