I did a search and found this thread -- they recommend freezing them after they've been cooked.

Thanks for that link, but having tried to reheat already cooked ones, I'm not impressed with the consistency. They dry out too much, turn brittle and can burn if the first cooking is done fully.

Guess I'll have to just try freezing the dough and see what happens!

The next time you make the dough, I would take enough for a couple of portions, freeze it and see what happens. Or you could make a double batch of dough and try some frozen as the sausage shape, and some in individual disks but that would take more to wrap.

That dough sounds rather similar to a flour tortilla dough but for the life of me I cannot remember if I ever tried freezing the dough. I may have to try it so please let us know your results if you give it a whirl.

I think it would work, but a lot would depend on your freezer and how long they'll stay frozen. If you could vacuum seal them after they're frozen, they'd do better. The big issue is water migration. It is possible that the texture could go off. Or not. Too much depends on the flour and proportions. but if you're using them up within a week, if they're well wrapped, and you don't have a really awful freezer, they should be fine. I agree with the idea of testing it. You don't have to do a whole batch. If you're making a batch of 6-8, make six to eat and two to freeze. Then next time, make them as normal and do the two frozen ones as well, so you don't have to mess up a meal to do it.

You might be interested in this discussion offsite, and this blog.

I actually made a spare "sausage" of the dough last night (I only cooked 4 and saved enough for another 4), tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. I've just now moved it to the (not awful!) freezer and will try it in a couple of days and report back...I'll also prepare another batch for long-term freezing and see what happens in a couple of months.

As always, I appreciate all the helpful suggestions!

The only problem that I could see is if the dough gets dried out. So if you had a sealer, that would probably do best to seal it. It's a very low investment to just experiment with the dough though, so go for it (as you already have). :)

FWIW, I use heavy foil over original packaging, plastic or parchment paper to wrap things I don't want to dry out or get freezer burned. I label the bundles w/ perm. marker on clear tape, since the marker quickly fades away on the bare foil. Plastic by itself is not truly airtight.

An update for anyone who may be interested...

This morning before leaving for work, I took the "sausage" of pastry from more than 4 days in the freezer and left it in the fridge. It was rock hard, like a concrete block. When I arrived home from work, it had thawed nicely, and I left it (still wrapped) on the kitchen bench to come up to room temperature. About 30 minutes.

Time to roll it out, and it felt slightly softer or wetter than I remembered. No problem, just a smidgen heavier dusting of flour on the board.

It rolled easier, cooked better and tasted sublime. A noticeable improvement on the first time. I'm now going to prepare several extra portions whenever I make a batch. Will try different wrapping (zip-lock bags, foil), date the packages and experiment with longer durations of time to discover the upper limits. 4 days probably isn't a fair trial. Maybe I'll even freeze some rolled out raw ones, too.

Food for thought...

Thanks for the report. I was nodding as I was reading your results. The differences you mentioned in texture sound like what happens when dough gets a good long rest. The great news is that it worked so well for the final product!

Four days was a good first trial because there should be no time for freezer burn. Now that you know how freezing affects it, when you do your further experiments, you have a baseline with a high standard to compare them to.

So glad to hear that they came out so well!

Thanks, shaxhome, I was wondering how it went, although I was relatively confident that it would be fine. I'm glad it was even better.

The trick now is how much you can lengthen that 4 days and still get a tolerable result.

Annie