Finally, a recipe that required no adapting! I was excited when I heard that this week's technical challenge on Bake Off would be vegan. I know that when I made my own filo pastry it didn't go that well but I made puff pasty once before during lockdown and learnt a lot about what not to do! I remembered that I had been too messy and the butter had burst out of patches of the dough as I rolled it. This time I made sure I used a ruler and kept my edges neat and I followed the advice of chilling and rechilling the dough as I worked. I followed the recipe here almost exactly. I used oat milk in place of almond and instead of making eight large rolls I made 16 small so that I could share them out amongst more people... I think some of my very helpful core sampling group have come to expect their weekly Bake Off delivery now!
So here goes, the link to the original recipe can be found here: Prue Leith's Vegan Sausage Rolls - The Great British Bake Off | The Great British Bake Off
INGREDIENTS
For the rough puff pastry: 300g plain flour pinch of salt 50g vegan block, cubed and chilled 8–9 tbsp ice-cold water 120g vegan block, frozen 2 tbsp almond milk (I used oat milk) 1 tsp agave syrup
For the filling: 7g dried porcini mushrooms 100ml just-boiled water 200g chestnut mushrooms 70g walnuts 1 tbsp olive oil 1 small onion, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1 x 400g tin of lentils, drained 2 tbsp brown miso paste 1 tbsp ground flaxseeds juice of ½ lemon large handful of flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and finely chopped 3 sage sprigs, leaves picked and chopped 3 thyme sprigs, leaves picked and chopped 2 tbsp Dijon mustard salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the caramelised red onion chutney: 2 tbsp olive oil 2 red onions, finely chopped 1 red chilli, finely chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 3 tbsp dark muscovado sugar 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
METHOD
The method was exactly as the recipe described.
The pastry
FYI the 'milk' in the picture may look like dairy, but it's actually Oato! Great in tea and coffee, on cereal and now, on sausage rolls!
The filling
Assembly
The chutney
Tips based on my experience
As you can see I used a ruler throughout the pastry making process. With the first roll and last I also trimmed pieces off to make sure I was starting and finishing with the right sizes.
I weighed the 'sausage' mixture and divided it by 16 so that I could weigh out exact amounts for each roll's filling. I'm glad this as the filling only just fit into the pasty covers. All this measuring made sure that each roll was exactly the same....as regular viewers of the show will know, this matters!
In conclusion
These were so so good. We ate them warm with the chilli chutney and they were fabulous. My husband said they were really flavoursome and of all the Bake Off things I've made, these are his second favourite (after malt loaf...which is my favourite too!) We both love mushrooms and these were similar to the mushroom and sage rolls we used to have in our deli counter.
It was actually really easy to make the puff pastry so I may make some more to freeze so I can make these rolls whenever I want. I may try different fillings too but I think this combination will be hard to beat!
Thank you again for reading, I can't believe I've continued this long and it is largely all of the encouragement I've had from people following the blog! Just a couple more to go... I wonder what next week will have in store!