Christmas Sausage Roll Wreath.

Sausage rolls have been a staple of Christmas buffets for decades. I am always banging on about how ‘normal’, every day food can be made special with just a bit of creativity and this Christmas sausage roll wreath is an example of this.

I was worried that the Christmas of 2021 was going to be a meagre affair.  Money was tight as my grandson had been born, and we were caring for him a lot due to my daughter being ill from the birth. This meant that our heating bills had shot up.  My Mum had also died recently and so I had used a lot of petrol money travelling to empty her house before it went.  On top of that it was the year that we had been locked down a lot, and had not been able to socialise.  Seeing my children together was going to be a very special occasion, and I wanted it to be something that we would remember.  As it happened, despite having very little money, I made one of my nicest Christmas buffets we have had.  It did not cost a lot.  It just took creativity and effort.  The sausage roll Christmas wreath contributed to the festive feel of the occasion and it is something that I intend to do again this year .

For my filling, I squeezed the middle out of a pack of Aldi Cumberland sausages as it was cheaper than buying sausage meat, and was already seasoned.   Grating some apple into it gave it some extra taste.  When using sausage meat I add grated onion, apple, and dried herbs.   The pastry for the wreath was made  with 8oz of plain flour and 2oz of lard and 2oz butter which is 8oz short crust pastry

As a template for the wreath I cut around a dinner plate and used the inside of a cake tin to cut out the middle, though a side plate would have done.  I repeated this so that I would have a top and a bottom for the wreath.

On to the bottom bit I then placed the sausage meat evenly around the wreath. I wet around the sausage meat with water and a pastry brush I then placed the other circle of pastry on the top and sealed it with a fork so that the sausage meat did not leak out.

Using some of the spare bit of pastry I decorated the wreath with ivy and holly leaves, and berries, but any shaped Christmas type decoration would be fine.

I painted the leaves with a bit of vodka with food colour in it to make it special. Apologies for the picture but it was dark in my kitchen and the light has cast funny shadows. I cooked the wreath until the sausage meat was cooked when probed, which took about 25 minutes. Unfortunately I took my eye off the one in the picture and I just slightly caught it.  I did not have any spare eggs to glaze it with and so used milk, but I think it would look a lot nicer with a shiny egg wash and will be less likely to catch and scorch.  I intend to do that this year.

I am going to experiment a bit more with painting some colours on my pastry this year.  Has anyone else tried this?