This is truly a sausage roll all dressed up for Christmas. Sweet, sticky fruit with the whiff of dark spirits in the background. We have made them fairly generous, but you could easily make them smaller and more dainty, to be eaten as a canapé alongside a schooner of sherry.

Ingredients

For the filling
75g

Prunes, pitted and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons

Somerset cider brandy
1 tablespoon

Olive oil
1

Red onion, finely diced
100g

Fresh breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon

Freshly chopped thyme
1 teaspoon

Freshly chopped sage
1/2 teaspoon

Freshly chopped parsley
75g

Cooked chestnuts, peeled and chopped
1

Small apple
500g

Sausage meat
A pinch of

Pure sea salt
A pinch of

Freshly ground black pepper
For the pastry
500g

Rough puff pastry
1

Free-range and/or organic egg, beaten

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Method

Preheat the oven to 200C/425F/Gas Mark 7 and line a baking tray with baking parchment.
Put the prunes in a small bowl with the cider brandy and leave them to plump up.
Meanwhile, warm the oil in a saucepan and cook the onion for 10-15 minutes until completely softened.
Tip the onion into a mixing bowl along with soaked prunes, breadcrumbs, herbs and chestnuts. Grate in the apple, skin and all. Crumble the sausage meat into the bowl. Season the salt and pepper and mix everything together well.
Dust a work surfact with flour and roll out the pastry into a large rectangle about 3mm thick. Pack the sausage filling evenly along the pastry, lengthways. Brush one side of the pastry with beaten egg and fold over to make one large sausage roll. Press the pastry together where it meets using the tines of a fork and trim away any excess. Cut the roll into 6-8 even-sized portions and transfer them to the prepared baking tray.
Brush each sausage roll with beaten egg and bake for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through.
Serve warm, or chill them well and serve cold with a dollop of chutney.