Sourdough Pigs in Blankets

These fun appetisers can be made simply using sourdough starter and your choice of cocktail sausages. Perfect for easy dinners, parties and game day eats.

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Discard, Sourdough Rolls

Prep Time 45

Cook Time 15

Proofing Time 2

Total Time 3

Servings pieces

Calories 292kcal

Ingredients

For the dough

100 g Sourdough Starter
200 g Milk warm (37C)
80 g Water room temp
20 g Sugar
5 g Salt
30 g Butter plus extra for brushing
500 g Bread flour
7 g Instant Yeast optional

For the filling

Tomato Ketchup plus extra to serve
25 Cheese Slices as long as the sausages you're using
25 Cocktail Frankfurts sausages

For the topping

40 g Butter
20 g Maple Syrup

Instructions

This recipe was created using a stand mixer (Thermomix). See notes for info on kneading by hand.
Add warm milk, water, sugar and instant yeast to the bowl of your stand mixer. Mix together until the sugar has dissolved and the yeast is foamy.
Now add your sourdough starter, bread flour and salt. Bring the ingredients together to form a shaggy dough.
This just means that the liquid and flour are brought together - the dough will look a bit dry at this stage.
Now, using the dough hook of your stand mixer, knead the dough for a few minutes until it becomes smoother.
Add the butter and continue to knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. This dough is not a sticky dough and should some together in one big ball.
This should not take too long using a stand mixer - no more than 5 minutes once the butter is added.
Remove the dough from your stand mixer, place into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
Leave the dough to rise until it's doubled. The dough must double - if it doesn't, your buns won't be as fluffy.
Once the dough has doubled, turn it out onto the counter. Cut dough into smaller pieces (I've used 30g dough balls for the sourdough pigs in blankets in this recipe. For bigger sausages, 50g of dough works well).
Roll each dough ball out into a small oval shape. Place a little ketchup and small piece of cheese in the middle, topped with the sausage of your choice.
Pull each side of the dough into the middle and stitch together to form the blanket around the sausage. Place the pigs in blankets onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
Preheat your oven to 180C/350F and set the rolls aside for a second rise - you want them to be puffy (it won't take too long - around 30 minutes to an hour).
Once the pigs in blankets are puffy, it's time to bake them.
Place into the oven and bake at 180C/350F for around 15 minutes. The rolls should be lightly browned on top, but don't let them get too dark.
While the piggies are baking, whip the maple syrup and butter together to form maple butter.
Take the rolls out of the oven and brush generously with maple butter. You don't have to melt the butter, just brush it on with a pastry brush and the warmth from the rolls will melt it.
Place the sourdough pigs in blankets onto a wire rack to cool.

Notes

Omitting Commercial Yeast

This recipe uses instant yeast to speed up the process. You can most certainly make them without the commercial yeast and rely on your sourdough starter to provide the rise. I have used commercial yeast because of the sausages - I didn't want to leave them to proof at room temperature - so I used commercial yeast to give a quicker rise, while still getting flavor from my sourdough starter.

If you want to leave the yeast out, you will just need to increase the time that the dough rises for (bulk fermentation). You want to let it rise in the bowl about 50%. They will rise the other 50% once you've shaped them.

Fermentation will depend on temperature so you need to watch your dough, rather than the clock! You don't want to over ferment them as it will make it too hard to shape them.

Kneading by Hand

This recipe was written using a stand mixer (Thermomix).

You can however knead the dough by hand.

It's important to dissolve the sugar and yeast in the warm milk and water before adding the flour. Knead the dough really well once the butter has been added - you'll need to bring your muscles! But it is a really lovely dough to work with, so you should be fine doing it by hand.

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