Chef Fo0bar presents: Sausage Roll Prerelease

Most of the dishes I’ve presented here have turned out well. However, I thought I’d document a dish that didn’t work out the best, but still has potential for improvement. A culinary beta, as it were.

A discussion about “sausage rolls” started in IRC this evening. Sausage rolls are pretty simple, just sausage and seasonings inside a dough wrapper, and are popular in the UK, Ireland and Australia. I decided to try my hand at a variation, as a single sausage loaf, designed to be cut into slices and served.

I took a tube of crescent rolls, but instead of pulling them apart into triangles, I left the sheet of dough intact. I then spread a pound of Jimmy Dean “sage sausage” (you can use regular sausage, with some sage rubbed into it) over the dough, leaving some room on the sides and top. I then rolled the dough and sausage into itself, much like a cinnamon roll. Crimp the top and ends, patch up any exposed areas of dough, and put into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. I always leave a baking stone inside my oven, and put the mega-roll directly on the stone.

This was the result. I pulled the loaf after 25 minutes, and you can tell it was still a little pink in the middle. But another 5 minutes in the oven cooked it all the way through. I really liked the flaky outer crust, but the inner dough pooled in the middle, and was… well, doughy. It wasn’t the consistency I was expecting.

It was certainly edible, but next time I’ll make a few changes. Namely, instead of one rolled loaf using the entire sheet of crescent roll dough, I’ll split into 4 quarters, still leaving the diagonal perforations connected. That way there is no inner dough, and the result will be a more consistent baking experience. But again, overall I liked the idea of using crescent roll dough, and baking directly on a baking stone turned out well.