Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and sausages can often be found in a sandwich together at this time of year as lines of limited edition treats hit the shelves.

Eastern Daily Press: Sarah Pettegree of Brays Pork Pies with the ingredients for her Xmas dinner pie. Picture by: Tom Gaffney / Caters NewsSarah Pettegree of Brays Pork Pies with the ingredients for her Xmas dinner pie. Picture by: Tom Gaffney / Caters News (Image: Image license supplied to Caters from source)

But one of Norfolk's culinary masters has gone one step further after wrapping up a whole Christmas dinner - including dessert - in a special festive pie.

Baked by Sarah Pettegree, owner of Brays Cottage Pork Pies, the nine inch thick pastry package was layered with roast parsnip, cranberry, chipolatas, Brussels sprouts, roast turkey, carrots, roast potato and topped off with roast onions.

And nestling in the centre, in its own suet pastry casing, was a dome of Christmas pudding.

Ms Pettegree was commissioned to make the one off festive treat and used some inspiration from experimental chef Heston Blumenthal - who she recently filmed with for his current TV series - when putting together the festive fillings.

She said: 'The client said they wanted the Christmas pudding in the corner of the pie, separated, but I knew technically that wouldn't work. I thought 'what would Heston do?' and then thought about suet pastry.

'That actually is very good at sealing flavours. Although it was cooked at the same time it was completely separate.'

After this the construction of the Christmas dinner pie was reasonably straight forward for Ms Pettegree, who is an expert in experimental pork pie creations.

'We have done lots of odd things in the past and all of our pork pies that we do that aren't the standard one have come about through playing about with recipes, so it's fairly everyday thinking for us.

'We do an all day breakfast (pie) with one layer of pork pie and quails egg and a layer of smoked bacon and baked beans, that wasn't so far away from what we were being asked to do.'

The family-sized festive pie was a one off for Ms Pettegree and her team this year but she has not ruled out cooking up a similar tasty treat in 2014.

'If there's enough demand we might think about supplying people's full Christmas lunch in a pastry case for next year,' she added.

'It would certainly cut down the washing-up time on Christmas day.'