Baking Camembert has really become quite popular in pubs and restaurants, and there are lots of different ways you can do this at home, but it does largely depend on your individual tastes.
Most people interested in baking Camembert have tasted something delightful from an eatery, and then look for a recipe they like (possibly to replicate what they experienced), and once they have achieved success, they repeat their tried and tested method over and over again, and also showcase their culinary skills to their friends and family.
If you are interested in finding out more about our Camembert Baker, please scroll down to the bottom of this article where we have included the product.
Don’t forget to finish reading this article first which could help you when you next plan on baking a Camembert.
Camembert: Do’s and don’ts
One of the more common mistakes made when baking Camembert from a recipe you may have seen online, is to get the wrong kind of Camembert. Basically you need to purchase unpasteurised cheese or it will curdle. We have noticed that quite a few people make this mistake, and despite their best efforts to follow the recipe to a tee, their end product is a curdled mess, which not only looks completely unappetising, it doesn’t taste particularly nice either! So make sure you buy unpasteurised cheese when you go shopping.
Another common mistake made by people who try baking Camembert without the assistance of a recipe, is that they bake it for too long!
You should preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas 4, and bake for approximately 15-20 minutes. Some people have the mind-set that the longer you bake Camembert for, the softer and gooier it will be. Wrong!
What actually happens is that after the optimum cooking time of 15-20 mins, the cheese goes from a state of being nice and gooey, to hardening back up again. So for those of you that have experienced this, we feel your pain, because if you take the Camembert out of the oven after 35-40, once you are convinced it will be nice and soft, and it is not, you then automatically think it needs to stay in longer. You can potentially end up wasting nearly an hour, and your Camembert cheese is never going to get back to its soft and mouth-watering state, unfortunately you have dried it out, and it most likely needs to go in the bin!
Unless you follow a recipe of some kind, you may not know that you need to slice the top rind before baking Camembert. Why must you do this? If you leave the rind intact, then the cheese ends up drying out and often expands with no way for any air to escape. Two options for overcoming this is to either completely cut off the top rind, and you will see this suggested in some recipes, or carefully score a cross in the top rind, which will allow you to infuse such things as fresh rosemary or garlic, but it will also make your cheese that much softer after 15-20 minutes of baking.
Whether you slit the top rind or completely take it off is your choice, but some people think that the rind makes the cheese, and want to keep as much of it around the cheese as they can. Others prefer to just go for the gooey centre, and leave the rind behind, it’s really up to you!
When baking Camembert you can use the wooden box it came in, providing you remove the paper wrapper, but not all Camembert cheese comes in a wooden box, and you cannot bake it in a cardboard box. You should not just place Camembert on a baking tray with nothing around it; it will just spread out and become one big mess.
Let us introduce you to the “award winning” Camembert Baker made by BIA! Created from the highest quality porcelain, this ingenious Camembert Baker has been designed to be both the perfect way of storing Camembert, and baking one in the oven with mouth-watering results!
Good luck baking your next Camembert!
