If you have some little people to feed, this is a fun little project. Even if you don’t have some little people to feed, you don’t need an excuse to play with your food and feed the little person inside. It’s fun, it’s tasty – it’s Sourdough Piglets in a Blanket Two Ways!
Actually, this recipe sprang from my love of hotdogs. A hot dog on soft white bread with lots of onions and yellow mustard. That’s it. I LOVE them. But it’s not something I eat often. When we have a picnic, I insist on throwing a few dogs on the grill, even if they’re not really part of the menu. It’s kind of a special occasion thing for me – I only get to eat a hot dog when I’m feeding other people.
So, I invited my friends Jennifer and Heather over for happy hour. Jennifer is gluten-free, but she can eat my sourdough bread. Heather is a vegetarian, so I couldn’t serve her beef hot dogs of course. But carrots? Would carrots work? Carrots with a Honey Mustard Sauce, perhaps?
How hard could this be? I wrapped the carrots and hot dogs in triangles of sourdough bread dough and baked them in a 425° oven for 20 minutes.
Surprisingly, the carrots were cooked through and delicious. Not surprisingly, the hot dogs were wonderful too. The problem was that the bread dough didn’t hug the piglets like I had hoped. My piglets were donning their grandmother’s stole(s), two sizes too big and falling off their shoulders. I served them to Jennifer and Heather, and they dutifully ate them without complaint (with fork and knife), but I still had work to do – this was supposed to be finger food. I’d made sourdough buns before using the Pantry Mama’s recipe for hot dog buns. Her recipe adds a bit of butter to the mix, which produces a much softer and fluffier “blanket.” I decided to give that a try.
It turned out much better than I had hoped. I held off on working with the carrots, opting to start with the dogs. The buns bake at a lower temperature than the sourdough bread dough, so I wasn’t confident that the carrots would be cooked unless I steamed them or parbaked them first. But the little beefy piglets were quite happy in their puffy jackets. I used fifty grams of dough per piglet. Maybe a bit too puffy, but the bread was light and airy, not chewy like before. Nice.
But what to do with the carrots?
It was an easy fix. I pre-cooked the carrots by tossing them with a bit of olive oil and roasted them in the air fryer for 15 minutes. Be sure to wipe the carrots off with a paper towel before you wrap them in the dough because the oil will prevent the dough from sticking to itself. I ended up using 50 grams of dough for the chubby carrot piglets and 35 grams of dough for each of the skinny Nathan’s hot dog piglets, and it was just right!
Sourdough Piglets in a Blanket Two Ways
Ingredients
- 1 batch sourdough hot dog bun dough, doubled in size (see notes, below)
- 5 all-beef hot dogs without casings
- 6 carrots
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven; prep the carrots and hot dogs – Preheat your oven or air fryer to 400℉. Cut each hot dog in half. Trim the carrots, and cut them in lengths approximately the same length as the hot dog halves.
- Roast the carrots – Spray the carrots with olive oil cooking spray and toss them to coat. Roast them for 15-18 minutes, or until they can be easily pierced with a knife.
- Roll the piglets in their blankets – Pinch off and weigh pieces of dough – 35 grams for hot dogs, and 50 grams for carrots. Working one at a time, roll each piece in a ball and then flatten it between your palms to form a rectangle that's a bit longer than the piglets. Place each piglet on its blanket with its head lolling off the edge. Pull the foot of the blanket up over the piglet's toes, then pull one side up and over the piglet lengthwise, and then the other side up and over, pinching along the length of the blanket, and tucking/pinching the foot of the blanket to close. Lay the piglet seam side down, snug in it's blanket, on a lined baking sheet. Continue until all of the piglets are blanketed and ready for their nap.
- Nap time for the piglets – Let the piglets rest for 30 minutes to an hour – they'll puff up a bit.
- Bake – Before baking, brush each blanket with an egg wash so that they'll brown nicely. Bake for 15 minutes in a preheated 400℉ oven.
- Serve – Serve warm with condiments for dipping.
Notes
I didn’t specify the number of servings in this recipe, but I can tell you that this recipe for Sourdough Piglets in a Blanket Two Ways yields ten hot dog piglets and twelve carrot piglets. How many piglets will you eat in one sitting? That’s up to you!
I loved both versions! So yummy!
You’re easy to please. 💕 My apologies for experimenting on you, but it’s just what I do! 🙂
Love my PIB! Sour dough sounds awesome and will try them next time. Hope all is well.
Enjoy!