Pastry Wrapped Sausages with Maple Dijon Dipping Sauce

Funny story. Have you ever seen a recipe and visually cataloged it in your brain... maybe even added the ingredients to your shopping list and then bought them only to find that you cannot, for the life of you, remember where you saw/read that recipe?

That happened to me a month ago. Searched my internet history, Pinterest boards, ziplist file, recent magazines I had read and still... couldn't find this recipe. Then I googled it. And I found similar recipes but not THE one... the one that was in my head and I could literally see a picture of how these things were made, in my mind.

And a few weeks ago I finally happened upon it in a new cookbook I received for Christmas, Savoring the Seasons with Our Best Bites! I couldn't believe when I saw the little inset picture on the corner of page 8. It was exactly what I had imprinted in my mind.

To be completely honest, I know I could have recreated this recipe but I really just wanted to FIND where I saw it!

So I picked up the rest of the ingredients at the store today set on making these as an after-school snack for the boys. I knew they'd love them. And they did. I made enough for two batches. One for today and another in the freezer for another day! So my recipe below is doubled. You do all the work once and get to enjoy them twice!

While the little sausage bites are great, the addition of the dipping sauce is really good. I recommend you go for it.

Pastry Wrapped Sausages with Maple Dijon Dipping Sauce
adapted from Savoring the Season with Our Best Bites, pg 8


1 box frozen puff pastry, thawed according to package
2 pkgs breakfast sausages- about 14 links; 12 oz each
1/2 cup shredded cheese- I used sharp cheddar
little maple syrup
1 egg, beaten, for egg wash

Maple-Dijon Dipping Sauce

2 Tbs Dijon mustard
4 Tbs maple syrup
4 Tbs mayonnaise

whisk until combined, refrigerate until ready to serve.
*incidentally, I think I did a 2, 2, 2 ratio on the sauce and it was still really good. So go ahead and use a little less maple syrup and mayo. Remember too how much you are making... I served about half of my sausages and froze the rest.

For the Sausages:


Unfold the puff pastry onto a silpat or lightly floured surface.  Sprinkle the top lightly with flour and roll out to about 12x12 square. Mine was not quite square as you see. Use a knife to cut into 3 equal portions. Brush one side with a little maple syrup (real maple syrup, okay I guess you could use pancake syrup but why?)

Place about 3 sausages down one side (lengthwise)  of the puff pastry, in each section. If you have a little extra dough, cut a sausage to fit. Sprinkle cheese right beside the sausage, just a little. You can skip the cheese if you'd like. These are quite adaptable. Now starting from the edge where the sausages are, roll them up until the pastry is all around them. Pinch the seam to seal.
(forgot to take a picture of this most important of the recipe. mea culpa)

Cut sausages up using a serrated knife (it worked best for me, but then I felt like the kitchen shears did an equally impressive job getting through the sausage casings). I got about 3 bites per sausage or.... this many... which is more, I know, but I wanted them to be snack size.

Repeat these steps until you've used all your pastry dough.

Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and brush with egg wash. 

OR

Take this un-egg washed batch and flash freeze it while you continue making your wrapped sausages. I did this with half of them and they're ready to be popped in the oven for the next snack time or game day or get together!

Bake at 375-400 (they forgot to mention the oven setting in their cookbook!) for 15-20 minutes. You want them to look like this:

Serve alongside the dipping sauce and enjoy!

They have the thumbs up from our crew! The Big People in the house really loved them as well! Did I mention the sauce was fabulous? It was!