Short and Tweet 8: Sausage Rolls, Savoury Scones & Pastry Fears
This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet tackled our widespread reluctance to make pastry (there was an option of savoury scones for people who avoid pastry): we made the Hot crust sausage rolls on pg 505 or the savoury scones on pg 534. I’ve opened with a photograph of Misky’s rolled-out pastry because the colour variations throughout the bakes are quite striking and it’s worth noticing those.
Some of us reported that we tend to avoid pastry because it’s fiddly, or because our previous experience with rolling it has left us disinclined to experiment further (for which, in some households, you might understand there were actual near-tantrums and cries of grief interspersed with, “You can’t make me do this”). However, I think it’s fair to say that our pastry fears were mostly knocked on the head by those who baked the sausage rolls: bakers seem to have been universally charmed by the straightforward recipe and delighted by their results.
Nicola of North_19 tweeted a series of comments about the sausage rolls that she then summed up in her illustrated (and informative) post: Puff, the magic pastry.
“For the most delicious sausage rolls EVER — perhaps an exaggeration, but I’m not sure what would have to happen to them to make me enjoy them more — you should buy the book and make these rolls. Actually, don’t buy the book. You do not want these in the house. Really, unless you run marathons or live with 12 people, you should NEVER make these. That said, it is unlikely that I will host any party in the future without them.”
Read about puff pastry, ogle Nicola’s pastry squares spread with nduja, and sprinkled with a few roasted vegetables: you will feel both better informed about pastry and tantalised.
Tony Inga of Pane Artigiano simply labelled his post: Scrumptious Sausage Rolls. His opening strikes a chord for many when he writes: “I have always enjoyed a good sausage roll but finding a good one is like locating the proverbial needle in the haystack. Either the meat or the pastry are simply not up to scratch.
However I have never had the courage to have a go and make my own. Until now that is.” Tony and his family are delighted with their sausage rolls that were tweaked to include apple rather than the chilli and paprika.
Misky on Misk Cooks captures the feelings of several #shortandtweet bakers in her well-illustrated account: Dan Lepard’s Hot Crust Sausage Rolls #ShortandTweet.
“Page 505 of Dan Lepard’s “Short and Sweet” cookery book was a revelation to me. I discovered that I needn’t fear pastry, and I’ll never need to avoid recipes that require handmade shortcrust again…Page 505 taught me that any old chestnut holding a rolling pin can make beautifully flaky pastry. It’s all in the recipe, you see, and in the recipe writer’s ability to dumb-down instructions to my level without being condescending to more skilled, experienced bakers. This recipe gets a huge thumbs-up from me.”
Go - read - learn tips about scoring the sausagemeat so that it hold its shape while cooking without it compressing.
As a nice contrast to Misky’s pastry that opens this compilation, Paul’s (Keeper9) pastry is a very different colour.
After some discussion it seems that the pastry contains extra chilli which confers the glorious colour and made these a tad spicy but delectable.
Jo of Zeb Bakes offers some seasonal Christmas Sausage Rolls and declares: “It must be Christmas as here I am making sausage rolls; normally only ever made in this house by the Pastry King and only ever in the week before Christmas”. I enjoy the offhand, by the by, snippets of family history and customs that come out when baking is discussed and this nicely illustrated post does not disappoint. I like the dinner shot because, as with some others in posts by other bakers, it’s possible to see just how many layers were formed here and just how delightfully flaky the pastry is.
The sausage rolls were a shared enterprise in my home. I made the pastry and did most of the rolling: mixing up the sausagemeat (Cumberland) was delegated to my Best Beloved who also did most of the making up and slashing of the sausage rolls. (In re: the slashing. We found that wiping the knife blade with a little semolina meant that it didn’t stick, nor did it drag any of the sausagemeat up to the top surface of the pastry.) Although most of our baking output leaves the house within 90mins of cooling, it seems that this week’s bounty is here to stay (albeit in the freezer until Christmas tea-time).
Choclette of ChocLogBlog opted for the savoury scones. I was delighted to see the little frill of melted cheese around these because that seems to add a special hit of umami to any baked cheese recipe.
Mitchdafish mentioned that she was going to make the sausage rolls but I haven’t seen them. I may update later if I track them down. Update: please admire these beauties from Mitchdafish and there are plenty more photographs of their creation on the Mitchadafish blog.
As next Sunday is Christmas Day, there is no #shortandtweet challenge but it resumes on January 1st with the nicely abstemious Extra-thin rye crispbreads pg 262 or slightly more opulent winter warmer Pumpkin and cider farls pg 537. If you blog about your experience with a recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 1 January or as soon thereafter as practical.
Schedule for the #shortandtweet January 2012 challenge.
Outline for #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions.
Thank you to everyone for taking part. I look forward to seeing the various savoury items in the New Year.
