Baked Camembert and Home-made Cranberry Bread

There are certain indulgences that instantly make you feel festive and we wanted to share our chefs favourite Christmas sharer recipes, perfect for a social gathering or cosy get togethers.

CRANBERRY BREAD

Makes 2 loaves

475g Strong Bread Flour

170g Wholemeal flour

10g Salt

30g Fresh yeast

338ml Warm water

4.5 Tablespoons of malt extract

375g Chopped Dried Cranberries

Method

Place the Strong Bread flour, wholemeal flour, bran and salt together in a large mixing bowl and mix together.

Rub the fresh yeast to the dry ingredients thoroughly (never put fresh yeast directly on salt).

Add the warm water and blend together to form a dough.

Slowly add the malt extract until all is incorporated.

Add the cranberries and mix in well.

Cut the mixed dough into 200g pieces.

Roll the dough with a rolling pin to an even 1cm thick rectangle.

Spray the rolled-out dough lightly with water and roll up into a long loaf shape.

Place the loaves on a lightly floured tray and prove at 40º-45ºc for 40 minutes.

Bake in the oven at 220ºC for 10 to 11 minutes.

Turn down the oven to 180ºC and bake for a further 5 minutes to finish.

As you remove the bread you can then start to prepare your Camembert.

Chef Tip: Try to time your bread baking with the camembert and indulge in warm bread fresh from the oven to dip into your flavoursome gooey cheese.

BAKED CAMEMBERT

Ingredients

Chopped walnuts.

Dried cranberries

Camembert cheese

Fresh Rosemary

Garlic Cloves

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Start by chopping your rosemary into sprigs that can be pushed into the cheese, maybe you have some Rosemary growing in the garden.

Peel and roughly chop about two cloves of garlic.

Chop the dried Cranberries.

Lightly toast the walnut pieces under a grill or using your oven, keeping a watchful eye so they don’t burn.

With a sharp knife score the top of the camembert and then rotate 90 degrees and score again so you get a nice square pattern on top this should just break the skin of the cheese to help get the flavours into it

Chef Tip: There are now some great English camembert style cheeses which will be great for this recipe and to support local producers

Place the cheese wheel onto a baking dish, the wooden box the cheese came in can also be baked in the oven this helps to keep the shape or you can use an oven proof dish.

Now place the rosemary on top of the cheese and pushing some sprigs into the cheese, sprinkle over the chopped garlic and drizzle with cold pressed rapeseed oil, finally a sprinkle of Maldon Sea salt and bake for around 10 minutes until nice and soft.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the toasted walnuts and dried cranberries and serve.