Festive Sausage Roll Wreath

Difficulty: Medium
Serves 12

My Festive Sausage Roll Wreath is quite honestly one of the simplest vegan recipes for the Yuletide but is going to have the biggest impact. It’s a wreath, so it’s Christmassy. It’s meaty, so it’s a great centrepiece. And it’s wrapped in pastry, so it’s bloody delicious.

You can use homemade pastry but in the name of convenience, I’ve just used store-bought (same goes for the cranberry sauce!)

Note: Use refrigerated vegan mince, not frozen crumbles or TVP as it will not hold. For Australians, I find V2 works best in these types of recipes but I think Beyond, Alternative Meat Co. or Naturli would all work fine.

Ingredients

• • 2 sheets store-bought puff pastry
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 small brown onion, finely diced
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 800g vegan mince (see note above)
  • 1 teaspoon ground sage
  • 2 teaspoons white pepper
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/4 cup cranberry sauce
  • 3 tablespoons soy milk
  • 3 tablespoons sesame seeds
  • Salt, fresh rosemary and extra cranberry sauce to serve

Method

1. 1. Preheat your oven to 200°C and line a large baking sheet with baking paper. Take your pastry out of the freezer to defrost.
   2. In a small pan, heat the oil before adding the onion and garlic. Cook until translucent and set aside.
   3. Chuck the vegan mince into a large mixing bowl and add the ground sage, white pepper and salt. Add the cooked onion and garlic, mixing to combine.
   4. Overlap your pastry sheets by about 1cm to make an extra long rectangle, pressing along the seam to seal.
   5. Spread the cranberry sauce along length of the pastry, about 10-15cm wide.
   6. Mould your sausage mixture into a smooth log, the same length as your sheet of pastry and gently place it on top of the cranberry sauce.
   7. Bring the edges of your pastry together and wrap the sausage mixture log. Press along the seam to seal and press firmly to ensure everything is packed in nicely.
   8. Trim a little off each end so you have clean edges. Transfer your log to the baking sheet and ,ark out 12 even portions. With a sharp knife, cut most of the way through, making sure the pastry is still in-tact at the bottom.
   9. Now for the tricky part! Place the log on its side with the cuts facing the outside. Bring the edges together to form a ring and twist each piece slightly so that the filling is exposed (take a close look at the photos, you’ll see what I mean.) If you need to cut the pastry a little more to do this successfully, go ahead and do so. When you’re done, you should have an uncooked version of what you see in the photos!
   10. Brush the exposed pastry with the soy milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds, avoiding the filling.
   11. Bake for about 50-60 minutes, until the pastry is a deep, golden brown.
   12. Remove from the oven and carefully transfer to a serving dish. Sprinkle with salt and wedge sprigs of rosemary between the layers to create a wreath effect.
   13. Serve with additional cranberry sauce and enjoy!