General Question

ubersiren's avatar

Would attempting to make icing/frosting with brie cheese be yummy or gross?

Asked by ubersiren (15208points) May 25th, 2009

You know, like cream cheese icing, but with brie.

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

40 Answers

MrGV's avatar

I don’t know how that would turn out, but its sounds nasty already

Likeradar's avatar

What are you frosting? A cake? Icky. Some kind of flaky or bread-y pastry thing might be delish, though.

Darwin's avatar

I would try blending a very small amount of brie with a bit of powdered sugar to try it, but I suspect the flavor of the brie will overpower anything you could put it on.

Now I have combined brie with a bit of garlic and placed it in the center of a ground beef patty and served it with a white wine and butter reduction. Now that was yummy.

Jeruba's avatar

I can’t imagine, but I am in awe of your powers of culinary creativity.

ubersiren's avatar

I was thinking carrot cupcakes. I like brie with jam or preserves, so I thought its savory would balance a sweet icing nicely, but maybe no?

Supacase's avatar

I am very skeptical about this. I don’t think it would be something I would care for.

Likeradar's avatar

Hurm… it might be really yummy with carrot cupcakes. But it might be really disgusting. Will you let us know the results?

loser's avatar

I like Brie. I say go for it!

hitomi's avatar

You won’t know unless you try it.

My brother has a theory that men are more adventurous with culinary experimentation than women…he’s probably right, he’s come up with things that have totally grossed me out when he mentioned them, but then they were actually really good…

I say go for it and then definitely let us know!

jbfletcherfan's avatar

I just have one word for it. IRK!!

charliecompany34's avatar

ricotta cheese is in canoli. i think certain cheeses can transcend to sweet desserts much like sour cream can devote to decadent cakes believe it or not.

casheroo's avatar

Chef hubby: that’s a try a little bit and find out. He is unsure if it’ll taste good or not. Trial and error.

ubersiren's avatar

I will update you! I’m curious. I think I’ll take @Darwin‘s suggestion to just try it with a little bit at first so I don’t waste any delicious brie.

rooeytoo's avatar

I think it might be good, let us know when you try!

La_chica_gomela's avatar

I think it depends on how sweet the cupcakes are. If they’re not too sweet, it could be really good. I wouldn’t add powdered sugar to brie though. That sounds naaaasty! Maybe just a teeny bit of honey? Or cherry jam?

I’d probably cut the crusts off the brie before trying to blend it with whatever you blend it with. Cream cheese maybe?

Or you could even just slice up some brie, put it on top of the carrot cake, then, stick it under a broiler for a second to melt it. That sounds delicious.

wundayatta's avatar

I tested it in the taste bakery in my head. The tasters unanimously turned thumbs down.

Brie is not a mild cheese like cream cheese and ricotta. With brie, it’s all about the flavor of the cheese. You can only contrast it with something. It can’t be mixed (in my opinion).

If you want something different than a cream cheese frosting, you could go sour cream something, or ricotta or cottage cheese, if there are recipes for this. All of these will have a bit of tangy-ness that could offset the sweet in the frosting quite well. Brie will just set it off, not offset it.

ubersiren's avatar

@La_chica_gomela : See, I like the idea of melting cheese on it, which is sort of what inspired the thought. Apple pie is sometimes served with a slice of sharp American melted on top. It’s the sweet with the savory. I feel like that sharpness against the sweet would be awesome. I guess there’s only one way to tell! I have to go to the store tomorrow.

jonsblond's avatar

@ubersiren Can’t wait to see how it turns out. I’d give it a try!

La_chica_gomela's avatar

@ubersiren: I’ve had apple pie with cheddar and I looove that! I also love those apple tarts with the brie. So delicious! That’s what this idea reminds me of too.

Oh, and by the way, I just read on cheese.com that brie is known as “one of the great dessert cheeses” and wisegeek.com calls it “deliciously mild”. I think it’s such a great idea! Now I really want to taste it myself!

@daloon: Are you kidding? You have no idea what strong cheese is!!!! Have you ever tried roquefort?!?!

wundayatta's avatar

Personally, I prefer Stilton, and a glass of aged Port. There’s a Canadian cheddar I used to be able to get, until they stopped exporting it to the US—it was very sharp, and one of the best cheddars I’ve had. Vermont’s Grafton, four year aged is also very nice, but hard to get.

The reason why these cheeses are paired with sweet items is because they balance the sweetness with tanginess. You don’t melt cheddar in your apple pie, you eat it with the apple pie. Similarly with brie—it accompanies fruits, but is not melted on them or in them. You don’t mix it with sugar, you use it to offset sweet things.

It may be a mild cheese, but compared to the other cheeses I mentioned, it is much stronger. And if it is a bit too old, it quickly gets quite amoniac. It’s not the flavor I’d want on my carrot cake, thank you very much. You’d better eat the entire cake on the day you make it, if you frost it with brie.

But go try it for yourself. Brie carrot cake. Mmmmm. Let me know what you think. Be honest.

My daughter tried her hand at baking a cake today. She made a fudge cake, and frosted it and decorated it, and we had it for dessert, and all of us thought it was very good, except her. She was expecting something dense, like a flourless torte, and when she got cake, she was a bit taken aback. Anyway, if this is the kind of mistake she’ll be making, I’m quite looking forward to her other adventures in bakedom!

La_chica_gomela's avatar

@daloon: I’ve definitely had a dish that was composed of a croissant cut in half with apples and brie slices melted on it. It’s a favorite at a restaurant I frequent, so obviously, I disagree.

And they’re cupcakes, so eating “the entire thing” probably isn’t that hard… ;-)

Darwin's avatar

@daloon – Actually I have won prizes for an apple pie that I make that has cheddar cheese mixed in with the apples and melted. Most folks don’t realize there is cheese in there but like the rich, buttery flavor that comes through.

However, I think that Brie melted over apple slices is a very different thing than Brie made into frosting. For one thing, the cupcake will typically be much sweeter than plain apples. For another, carrot cake is already quite rich and filled with fat of some sort (depending on what you use, it would be butter, margarine or cooking oil) so the Brie would just add more fat, instead of serving as a contrast between crisp, fat free apples and creamy, fat-loaded cheese.

Another test would be to have a slice of carrot cake without frosting and a bit of Brie and to put both in your mouth at the same time. I am afraid that personally it strikes me the way one of my professor’s favorite snacks did as not a good idea. What he loved was to always eat chocolate cake while drinking beer. And not a fancy or interesting beer. His beer of choice was Miller. While I can indeed eat chocolate cake and drink beer at the same time I find that the combination rather ruins the taste of both.

wundayatta's avatar

@La_chica_gomela As @Darwin said, that’s not at all comparable to brie frosting.

Eating all the cupcakes in one day? Ok. If you can do that with only a few people. It would be ok if you were having a party, then you might only have to eat one.

@Darwin Cheddar with apples is a very different thing from brie frosting.

Let me ask you about some other things:

cheddar with peach pie
cheddar with rhubarb pie
brie cooked with figs, maybe as an appetizer tart, or maybe as a dessert
cream cheese and port in apple pie
cheddar or brie in pumpkin pie
brie, fig compote, honey and toasted almonds in a tart
brie in chocolate mint cheese brownies

There are some of those I would try and others I wouldn’t touch if you paid me.

cak's avatar

Just wondering what it would be like mixed with honey and maybe some finely diced pecans. I love pecan encrusted, baked brie with warm honey – the tastes all meld together and are wonderful!

La_chica_gomela's avatar

@cak: Love it! Honey was one of my original suggestions, too, but w/ pecans sounds SO delicious. I like the pecans inside my carrot cake though (or walnuts, whatever’s handy).

cak's avatar

@La_chica_gomela – I wouldn’t be afraid to try it, but maybe more like a glaze. Not too heavy. Besides, a good carrot cake should only be complimented with a good frosting or glaze, not coated! (send me a bite!)

sakura's avatar

Brie and cranberries is delish served with bacon and chicken the sweetness of the cranberries really brings out the taste of the brie!! (more a savoury snack though)
Try Cranberry and brie scones?? Because cheese scones are really tasty when made with cheddar so reckon they will be fab with brie!
If you mush up the brie you should be able to pipe it through an icing bag, so it looks like frosting if you are really wanting to give the frosting of carrot cakes a try!

ubersiren's avatar

The results are in!!!

So, I took equal parts brie and butter (I used about a Tbsp of each in this experiment), a few drops of vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and a spash of milk. I mixed it and the brie was sort of lumpy in there. It wasn’t softened enough, so I microwaved it for a few seconds, then it was all too runny with still, a few brie lumps. I mixed it some more and the lumps eventually incorporated. I refrigerated it for about 10 minutes and it was back at frosting consistency. I added some more powdered sugar to make it stiffer. Then, the taste test. It was absolutely fabulous. Though, I don’t think I’ll use it on carrot cake, but maybe with some berries in a parfait or something. It tastes much like the cheese filling of a cheese danish, but you can adjust the sweetness. It’s not smoked or anything, so it’s not really a strange combo taste. You can definitely taste the brie and it’s really good. I can imagine it being really good with some honey instead of vanilla, or maybe both, I don’t know. It actually came out sweeter than I like, so I added a sprinkle of salt and it was perfect.

Clair's avatar

i figured it would be phenomenal. cheese is good with anything. though, i’m not that fond of brie. but i had the same carrot cake thing in mind. we must go to the same head taste bakery.

Jeruba's avatar

Thanks for the report! I wish you could send taste images over the Internet and not just sight and sound. Something to look forward to in next-generation computing.

Darwin's avatar

Glad you let us know how it went. I wouldn’t have thought it would be a good combination, but possibly the fact that you added the butter may have softened the taste of the Brie.

ubersiren's avatar

Yeah, I think the butter made all the difference. It’s more buttercream-ish that way.

cak's avatar

YUM! I’m going to try this, myself!

prude's avatar

it would be yummy.
brie is a fruit cheese
yummy w/grapes, apples, pears, strawberries
let me know how it works out

La_chica_gomela's avatar

@prude: she already did let us know how it turned out. look up! ^^

prude's avatar

@La_chica_gomela thanx:)
will jot down recipe and try it in the future

Starburst's avatar

um, that just would not work.

Response moderated (Spam)
wallabies's avatar

I would try it, but I wouldn’t expect it to be good. Brie has more of a salty / savory flavor to me…and it can be strong… Camembert is milder though, so that might be okay. But if I wanted to add cheese to frosting, I would go with cream cheese, ricotta, or mascarpone. I can vouch that these make delish frosting!

lisaharter's avatar

I made Apple Spice cupcakes with Brie frosting and it was amazingly good

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