GlutenfreeSally

At the weekend I did a practice Christmas dinner instead of a Sunday lunch.  I have a fairly new oven so I wanted to make sure that everything cooked OK for the big day.  I have seven coming for Christmas lunch this year, not as many as I have done in the past, but it’s a nice number.  This sausage nut stuffing cake is delicious, I found the recipe years ago on the web and I have converted it to be gluten free. It can be made dairy free too, just use dairy free spread instead of butter.  I must apologise for the lack of pictures of the finished cake, but I was so intent on dishing up dinner before it got cold that I forgot to take a picture of it when it came out of the oven, it wasn’t till it was on my plate did I remember!Sally’s Tip…. To save the hassle of finding gluten free sausage meat, just use your favourite gluten free sausages and squeeze the meat out of their casings – it’s very satisfying too 🙂

You will need:

• 2 tbsps olive oil
• 25g butter (or dairy free alternative)
• 3 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 sticks of celery, finely chopped
• 100g bread crumbs – I used Mrs Crimbles
• 500g sausage meat – see Sally’s Tip
• 50g roughly chopped walnuts, plus a few for the top
• grated zest of an unwaxed orange
• 1 tbsp chopped sage leaves or 1 tsp dried sage
• 1 egg, beaten
• 8 rashers of streaky bacon
• handful of chopped parsley to serve (optional)
• 18-20cm spring form cake tin

next:

• preheat oven to 200C/180C(fan)/gas6
• Line the cake tin with the bacon like so..
• Heat the oil and butter and gently fry the shallots and celery for about 5 minutes without colouring them

• When cooked tip into a large bowl and then add the breadcrumbs, sausagemeat, walnuts, orange zest and sage. 
• Add plenty of pepper and a little salt, then mix together with your hands – I use surgical gloves for this
• finally add the egg and mix well.

• spoon mixture into the tin and fold the bacon loosely over the top, finally scatter the reserved walnuts and a slightly press in

• Set tin on a baking sheet, the cake will leak a bit and you don’t want it all over the bottom of your oven.
• put in oven and bake for at least 45 minutes until it’s crisp and golden
• Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before taking out of tin to serve – Enjoy!