When I eliminated gluten from my diet, I wasn’t expecting the rollercoaster of emotions that came with it. I’d been struggling for so long with feeling ill on a daily basis that, when I stopped eating it and I at last felt well again, I was on cloud nine. My head felt light and clear; my nose stopped dripping; the tennis elbow in my right arm all but vanished; the excruciating inflammation and tightness in my neck and shoulder muscles melted away; and the daily evening bloat was a thing of the past. I was so happy to feel well again that I really didn’t care that I couldn’t eat soft, fragrant, freshly-baked bread or buttery, flaky pastry and croissants.
Then, at around about the two-month mark, complacency kicked in. Feeling well was no longer a novelty but what I came to expect out of daily life. Which meant that not eating soft, fragrant, freshly-baked bread and buttery, flaky pastry and croissants became deprivation. I grieved. I grieved the loss of gluten from my life. I resented people around me eating food that I couldn’t. I felt that I’d been dealt a completely unfair hand. I didn’t stray though, thankfully. The memories of accidental glutening incidents were enough to keep me on the straight and narrow. Not having eaten it for months, the effects when I unknowingly ate it were even worse than when I had been eating it on a daily basis: I would have to retire to the sofa, curled up in a foetal position, with severe flu-like symptoms, dosed with Voltarol and nursing a hot-water bottle.
I gradually came out of my grieving state. I decided that, rather than feel sorry for myself, I would count my blessings instead which is a very liberating experience. There are people who have much graver health issues than mine and people who eat far more restricted diets than me. I still crave breads and pastries but I’m much more sanguine about it. Kate Moss, to explain her self-control where food was concerned, once said: “Nothing tastes as good as thin.” I’ve adopted this, with a slight change, for my philosophy: “Nothing tastes as good as well”.
I experiment tirelessly to recreate the dishes that I can no longer eat. This particular recipe I’ve been tinkering with for months, experimenting with different flour blends, flour-to-starch ratios and rolling techniques. I’m finally happy to share it. I’m still burying my croissant attempts at the bottom of the garden, ahem!
Gluten-free puff pastry sausage rolls
Makes 4 large or 12 cocktail sausage rolls
100g gluten-free plain (all-purpose) flour (I used Dove’s Farm gluten-free plain flour)
30g cornflour
1 tsp xanthan gum
25g cold butter, cut into small cubes
a glass of water with a couple of ice cubes and a good squeeze of lemon juice
75g cold butter, sliced into 1-2mm slices and returned to the fridge
2 gluten-free sausages (I used The Black Farmer sausages)
lightly beaten egg or milk to glaze
Sift the flour, cornflour and xanthan gum into a bowl. Rub in the cubed butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Using a knife to start and then your hands, mix in enough ice cold water to form a ball of soft dough (it should be a few tablespoonfuls).
Tip the dough out on to a floured surface and, with a well-floured rolling pin*, roll it out until it is a couple of millimetres thick and about a 23cm by 28cm rectangle. Cut the rectangle into quarters. Lay a third of the sliced butter (25g) in a single layer on top of one of the rectangles. Cover with another rectangle. Repeat with the next 25g of butter. Cover and repeat. Cover with the final rectangle of dough.
Press down with your rolling pin on all four raw edges of pastry to seal them. Roll out until it is a couple of millimetres thick again (it should be a bit bigger than last time because of the added butter). Cut into quarters and stack on top of one another. Press down with your rolling pin on all four raw edges of pastry and roll out again until a couple of millimetres thick: you’re looking for a square or fat rectangle 30-odd centimetres each way but it doesn’t need to be exact. Trim off any raggedy edges.
Remove the skins from the sausages and gently roll them in a little flour until they are about 1cm in diameter and the length of your sheet of pastry. Place this about 5cm from the left-hand edge of the pastry and brush water along the right-hand side of the sausage all the way down. Carefully bring the pastry over from the left to the right and seal it by pressing your thumb along the length. Cut away from the rest of the sheet of pastry until you have one long sausage roll. Score diagonal lines down the length and then cut in half, if making large sausage rolls, or into six, if making cocktail sausage rolls. Repeat with the second length of sausage.
Place the sausage rolls on a baking (cookie) sheet lined with greaseproof baking paper and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Ten minutes before the end of the chilling time, preheat the oven to 180°C (fan-assisted). Just before baking, brush each sausage roll with beaten egg or milk. Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes** or until golden brown and crisp.
*You can roll out the pastry between two sheets of greaseproof paper or clingfilm if you like. I prefer to use a well-floured surface and rolling pin because I like to see and feel what I’m doing and it’s easier to tell if it’s getting too sticky. Also, the extra flour is incorporated into the pastry which must alter the flour/fat ratio somewhat – and it seems to work! If doing the latter, make sure you keep flouring to avoid sticking and use a palette knife to ease the pastry from the surface.
** Cocktail sausage rolls may take slightly less time to cook.
Well done – this pastry looks delicious and, just as importantly, easy to make! I’m looking forward to trying it out.
Thank you! I really hope you enjoy it. I did. There’s only one sausage roll left now! 🙂
These look amazing! Celiac disease runs in my family. So far none of my children, or myself are affected, but I am always looking for special recipes for my four Aunts, and one Uncle who suffer from the ailment. Can’t wait to give them a try for our next family gathering!!! Thank you so much for sharing in your journey, and for visiting our happy little homestead @ Stand Upon Grace! Swing on in anytime for a visit!!!
Blessings to You and Yours~ Wendy
I’ve been searching everywhere for a GF puff pastry recipe for use with savoury treats. Trying it out today!
Please let me know how it turns out! 🙂
[…] * The Gluten Free Notebooks – is a great gluten free blog by the lovely Claire. Her recipes are mainly inspired by British and Mediterranean dishes, she even made gluten free puff pastry! […]
Thanks so much for this recipe – my grandson is not coeliac but suffers with life threatening wheat allergy. He really misses sausage rolls so hopefully this time Nanny can get it right and just in time for his birthday. Anne.
Hi Anne! So pleased you think my recipe will be helpful. All I would say is, make sure the butter is really cold and don’t roll it too thin. Hope it works ok 🙂
Trying for the first time. Both my daughter and I are coeliac so looking forward to this treat. Hope it work. G
So do I! It can be a little temperamental and I’m working all the time to improve it. In addition to making sure the butter is really cold, I would suggest putting it straight back in the fridge if it goes sticky and to not roll it too thin or too hard because the layers get squashed. C x
Hey , I will post that fabulous gluten, egg, sugar, and dairy free banana loaf recipe sometime ( will just have to ask my friend if she minds? ) . Like your blog 🙂
Ooh, I’m looking forward to that! I do love banana bread. I’ll keep an eye out for it. And, thank you very much! 🙂
You are BRILLIANT to solve this problem. My youngest daughter is gluten intolerant and so the whole family has just gone GF. I do miss puff pastry, its so fun to work with at the holidays. Tell me, do you find you have to pop it back in to the fridge to keep it cold enough? Or maybe european butters dont contain as much water as our american butter does. I will be checking in regularly!
Thank you so much for your comments. I must stress that this recipe is still very much a work in progress and it can be quite temperamental. I find keeping it cold is really important and not rolling it too thinly. If you can eat eggs, I find putting in some in place of some of the water also works well. Not sure about the difference in butters as I’ve never baked in the US. I really enjoyed your blog btw 🙂
I admire your determination. I can only imagine how discouraging it would be to suddenly to have to change to a GF diet. Keep up your “mad scientist” work in the kitchen I’m sure it will pay.
Thank you for stopping by my blog and commenting. I don’t think I’ve ever been described as a “mad scientist” before but I kind of like it 😀 I find gluten-free baking both fun and challenging in equal measure and I make a point of feeling blessed about what I can still eat rather than lamenting what I can’t 🙂
My husband is gluten-free and feels he is really missing out when we all have sausage rolls on Christmas day when we are opening our presents. Thanks to your recipe he won’t this year! Just one question – have you ever made these in advance and frozen them (cooked or uncooked)? Thanks again for sharing x
Thanks for commenting, Nicola. I’ve never frozen them but if I were to, I would do them uncooked. Please do also read my advice and caveats above. This pastry is quite tricksy and temperamental and I don’t always have success with it.
Claire 🙂
Hey there! The sausage rolls seem to be a big hit! Thanks for the encouragement on my blog. Hope I’m not butchering the beautiful Italian language too much. Cheers that this season is good to you. Trying to finish up a 3-part series on gluten free holiday partying and just had a big interview with a magazine. So much to do, so little time. And no, not talking about the world ending tomorrow. I don’t have time for it to end, frankly. See you later!
Umm, you don’t know Ally Boyd from Adam; it’s beautyofthewrittenword.
Hi Ally. Thanks for visiting my blog and commenting. I must say it was the Italian titles of your blog posts that first caught my attention. My first degree was in Italian and I lived in Florence for a year so I have a great love for both the language and the country.
Have a wonderful festive season and I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Claire 🙂
I just might try this today. I hope the dough will keep wrapped in saran wrap, because i’d like to do little ‘cocktail weenies’ for our open house on christmas day. The biggest challenge will be an accurate conversion of measurements!
Hope it goes OK. You have read all my caveats and advice above, haven’t you? I’m currently working on an improved recipe with a more traditional rolling technique.
I’m going to give theses go, I really miss sausage rolls,
Hi Helen! I hope you’ve read all my caveats above…! Your kitchen also needs to be really cold.
Claire x
These look delicious! Like you were before, I’ve been having terrible stomach issues lately. I’ve also been feeling pretty tired for what seems like no reason. I’d like to give gluten free a try – recipes like this make it seem all the more do-able!
Thank you! All I would say, though, before giving it a try, is that you talk to your doctor. I stopped eating it without doing that and now I’ve been off it for far too long to be tested for coeliac disease without eating it again and causing myself a whole world of pain. I really wish that I had got myself tested first.
If you do end up going gluten-free though, you’ll find that life doesn’t end – we can still eat delicious food!!!
Claire 🙂
It is beautiful to read how you decided to see living gluten-free as an opportunity! 🙂
Thank you, Afra! It’s no good being gloomy! I have lots of things to be thankful for! 🙂
I’m going to try this recipe tomorrow for my boyfriend who is mourning that he might never eat sausage rolls again!
Do you think they would keep well uncooked in the fridge overnight? I might prepare the sausage rolls & cook half tomorrow and the other half the next day.
Hi Riona,
I hope you’ve read all the comments above before trying this. Puff pastry is really difficult to make even when you have gluten in your side! Make sure that your kitchen is really cold, put it back in the fridge fora bit if it starts to feel sticky and don’t roll it too hard as the layers get lost.
As for keeping half, that shouldn’t be a problem.