Baking Advent Calendar day 17

We’re well into the Christmas baking now so it’s time to start thinking about what you can make ahead of time. One of the bakes that I always do about a week beforehand is sausage rolls and that’s what I’m sharing today for Baking Advent Calendar day 17. These can be baked and frozen now, then taken out to be served warm on he day. If like me you want to have them with Christmas morning drinks just remember to take them out of the freezer to defrost the evening before.

Sausage rolls are an all year round favourite but always seem particularly good at this time of year. I always try to make the festive ones a little bit special by adding some chopped dried fruits and toasted fennel seeds to the mixture. For many years I fought shy of making my own rolls. Primarily this was down to how fiddly the puff pastry was to make and at this time of year there just seemed to be better baking projects that I could be spending my time on. Then my partner introduced me to the Delia_Smith quick flaky pastry recipe and I’ve never looked back. This recipe is so easy and seems to produce great pastry every time. Over all the recipes makes approximately twenty rolls.

Ingredients for the pastry

• 225gm plain flour
• 170gm margarine – this has to be a block, not soft tub margarine
• pinch of salt
• cold water

Method for the pastry

• Cut a 170gm piece of margarine. Wrap in foil then place in the freezer for 30 minutes
• Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl
• When you take the margarine from the freezer partially unwrap it. Still leave some foil on for you to hold it by. Dip the unwrapped end in flour and then grate the margarine. Keep dipping and grating until the while frozen pieces is done. This should leave you with a pile of grated margin sitting on top of the flour.
• Use a pallet knife to cut it into the flour. Once done add a little water and work the dough into a ball with your hands. I find this takes about two table spoons of water.
• Wrap the pastry in cling film and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Ingredients for the sausage rolls

• 450g good pork sausage meat
• I medium onion grated
• 1tsp fennel seeds crushed
• small amount of dried fruit – I used chopped dried figs and currants in mine
• 1 egg beaten

Method for the sausage rolls 

• Make the pastry as above
• Heat the oven to gas mark 7 and line a baking tray.
• Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl
• On a floured surface roll the pastry out to an oblong. Try to get it as thin as you can.
• Cut the oblong into three, divide the sausage meat into three and lay it in a strip along each of your three pieces of pastry.
• Brush one edge of each pastry strip with the egg and then gently roll the pastry until it encase the sausage meat. Use the edge with egg wash on to seal the strip.
• This will form one long sausage roll. Cut into approximately inch long segments and place them on the baking tray.
• Once all roll are on the tray brush them with egg wash and bake for 20 minutes.