Easy Sausage Rolls

I have always liked the British version of a good sausage roll, they make a great snack, or the basis of a lunch with soup or salad, and of course make great hors'd'oeuvres!

Begin by defrosting a sheet of puff pastry, from the grocers frozen aisle, it takes about 2 hours in fridge or 30 minutes on the counter, but make sure you cover it well to keep it from drying out. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Use a sheet pan covered in parchment paper

The best sausage to use in this is Oktoberfest, mild Italian, or pure pork sausage, you must remove the casing, keeping the shape of the sausage intact, it is easier if the sausage is very cold or partially frozen. Use your kitchen shears to cut a little way down the casing, then peel it off the rest of the way. Set aside.

Once the puff pastry is ready to roll out a little, just enough to make it smooth, and easier to handle, flour just the rolling pin, if it sticks use just a little on the pastry itself. Once you have rolled it out a bit, it will be bigger by an inch or two on all sides, take two or three sausages, set out in a line edges touching, on top of the short edge of the pastry, then roll pastry and sausage over until the pastry covers the sausage with 1/4 inch overlap, cut down through the sheet of puff pastry there, then with a pastry brush and a little cream, brush the inside seam of the long sausage roll, pinch edges together, then with a very sharp serrated knife, cut the long sausage roll into 2.5 cm or 1" pieces, making sure that sausage is showing at each end of the little sausage roll. Continue in this way until you have used up your sausages, or pastry or both. fill the sheet pan covered with parchment or silpat, with the 1 inch sausage rolls,seam side down, leaving an inch all around each for the pastry to puff up. Put pan in fridge for 30-45 minutes, keeping the puff pastry cold will make the pastry puff into double its thickness due to the reaction of steam from the ovenheat/butter in the pastry. Once everything is very cold, brush each sausage roll with a little cream, then put into preheated 375 degree F oven for about 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!