Rough Puff Sausage Rolls

One thing that I love about the patisserie course is learning new skills. I thought I was pretty clued-up before but there are always things to learn and a few weeks ago it was puff pastry. Practicing pastry so often doesn’t come cheap though and using butter actually makes the product unstable, as it has such a low melting point. Although we were all shocked on our first day to see Fabrice advocate the use of pastry margarine in lieu of butter, when it comes to rough puff, I’m now a convert.

All supermarkets sell ‘baking fat’ in one form or another. Closest to the baking fat we’ve used in class is Cookeen, which is hard, white and found in most supermarkets (not to be confused with the downright awful Trex) but my new favourite is Marks and Spencer’s 55p baking fat, which is softer than Cookeen and yellow in colour. The flavour in this baking fat comes a lot closer to that of butter and is more than half the price too. The problem with using a baking fat instead of butter is of course its higher melting point, which can result in that horrid greasy mouth feel one experiences after a shameful trip to Greggs. That said, by using baking fat your puff pastry will be much more stable when it cooks in the oven and taste just like shop-bought. To be honest, I just don’t have the money to keep buying butter, and certainly when I’m making something savoury, I haven’t yet experienced that greasy feel when using the baking fat from Markies.

Makes 12-15

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

100g strong bread flour

10g butter (a knob)

Pinch salt

80g pastry margarine

55ml cold water

For the filling:

2 onions

1 packet of your favourite sausages (about 500g)

Chutney of choice

1 egg, beaten.

Method:

1)      Sieve the flour into a large bowl. Make a well and add the salt, then the butter. With your fingertips rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

2)      Add enough water to make a firm but elastic dough before chopping the baking fat into small cubes and roughly mixing this into the dough.

3)      The point here is that you want a messy ball of dough studded with big chunks of baking fat. It shouldn’t at all be incorporated, because when it comes to rolling out the dough, you want to trap those chunks of fat to create layers in the pastry.

4)      Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and roll out into a rectangle roughly the height of an A4 piece of paper. It doesn’t matter if it’s thick or a mess at this point.

5)      Fold the dough as if it were a business envelope. Turn the dough so that the ‘envelope’ is now positioned like a book (i.e. you should be able to ‘open’ the dough as if it’s a book cover). This is your first ‘turn’.

6)      Repeat the process of rolling out into a rectangle about 1cm thick, before folding the dough like a business envelope again. This is your second ‘turn’! Wrap the dough in cling film and put it in the fridge to firm up for twenty minutes.

7)      When the twenty minutes is up, make sure that the dough is positioned like a book cover again before rolling it out as another rectangle 1cm thick, folding it like a business envelope and ‘turning’ it again. Roll it out one last time for your fourth ‘turn’ and then the dough is ready!

I know it looks like a time-consuming process, but if you’ve got something else on the go at the same time it really doesn’t feel that bad, I promise.

8)      While you’re rolling the dough and resting it, it’s a good time to sort out your onions: Roughly chop them before frying in a splash of sunflower oil for 10-15 minutes until soft and sweet. I always give them an extra chop once they’re soft before setting aside to cool.

9)      Squeeze the sausages out of their casings before combining them with the cooled, chopped onions.

10)   Roll out the pastry into a narrow rectangle with about the thickness of a £1 coin.

11)   Roughly arrange the sausage meat mixture in a 1 ½ inch line along one edge of the pastry. At this point I like to spread on a thick trail of chutney alongside the sausage meat for some extra flavour.

12)   Run some egg wash along the edge of the pastry before carefully rolling the sausage and pastry over onto itself, squashing gently to seal it. Cut off any excess pastry and turn the seam onto itself, pressing gently but firmly to ensure it has sealed once and for all.

13)   Using a sharp knife chop the sausage log into 1-2 inch rolls, depending on your preference before placing on a lined baking tray and brushing with more egg wash.

14)   Bake on the middle shelf of a preheated oven at 200˚ for 25-35 minutes until golden brown and crispy.

I always try to serve these piled high on a pretty plate but they rarely get that far.