Outside Eating Sausage Rolls.

Here we are, another use for this super special homemade pastry I told you about the other day and it’s picnic tiiiiime! Or at least it’s time to stop thinking that popping outside for 5 minutes on your lunch break is the craziest thing in the world.

Now I’m not of the “heck it’s 15°c, it must be shorts and flip flops weather” school. It takes a good additional 10 degrees for sandals to even remotely be considered. But on sunshiney days early on in the year when hats and scarves and double, triple layer socks are not a distant memory and not out of the question for next week, it feels like every minute that can be squeezed out of the great outdoors, should be. And that means nibbles outside as well as walks and runs and sitting and chats.

Not barbeques or big banquets with bunting and candelabras like you see in foodie magazines- someday, but snacks on a picnic bench, or a weekend lunch in the park or a break from a walk on the beach. And theeeese sausageysausage rolls are perfect for all such occasions as well as packed lunches and parties. Being a veggie I tend to delegate the squishing up sausages bit, but the rest is easypeasy. Aaaand these is a delicious veggie version which I will have to tell you about sometime soon, should you feel that way inclined, which, little Sis, I know you are.

Both this recipe and the veggie one have never feeled to be met with praise and mmmmms, in my experience, out of proportion with the effort you are required to invest...always a bonus. With Love and Cake.

Sausage Roll

Adapted from Delia's recipe (deliaonline.com)

A few notes:

• These are great to have in the freezer, made up but not cooked, because you can just whack them in the oven, cook from frozen, and you have homemade sausage rolls in half an hour.
• As I said here, using good, shop bought butter puff pastry should not really be considered a cheat, so feel free to do that...and these will come together in no time at all. 
• You can make these as big or as bite sized as you wish, just tweaking the cooking time a bit to suit. Really the recipe in terms of amounts is not important, just as long as the amount of meat you have matches the amount of pastry. 

Makes 10ish, depending on how big you make them

You will need 

1 quantity of this homemade flaky pastry or a 375g-ish packet of shop puff pastry, chilled 

4-6 your favourite sausages 

A few spring onions, finely chopped 

Pinch cayenne pepper 

1 egg, lightly beaten 

• Preheat the oven to 200°c. 
• Right let’s go, squidge the sausage meat out of their skins and mash it up a bit with the onions and pepper. 
• Now for the pastry. On a clean floured surface, roll out your chilled pastry into a long rectangle, with a width of around 3 times the width you want your sausage rolls. You might find it easier to work with it in 2 halves or thirds so you have to work with less at a time. 
• Go back to your meat and roll it back into sausage shapes, which I tend to keep a bit skinnier than the nice fat sausages I use. 
• Then lay the meet down the centre of the pastry, as in the picture above and brush some egg down one side. 
• Fold the un-egged side up and around the meat and meet it with the eggy side so it overlaps a little, and press down to seal. 
• Turn your big sausage roll over so that the seam is underneath and slice into individual sausage rolls. I tend to go for ones that are around 2 inches long. 
• Now carefully move them over to a greased baking sheet and snip little slits into the top of each one, then brush all over with egg. 
• Time to bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden and shiny and then cool on a wire rack until it’s time to head out into the sunshine (hopefully).