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Blackberry Roly-Poly
2 cups blackberries. 1/4 cup water. 1 cup sugar. 1/4 teaspoon salt. 2 cups pastry flour. 4 teaspoons baking powder. 1/2 teaspoon salt.
Yolk 1 egg. 4 tablespoons Cottolene.
White 1 egg slightly beaten.
Granulated sugar.
Ground cloves.
PROCESS: Cook blackberries in water and salt until berries are soft. Rub through a sieve and add sugar to pulp; return to range and cook until mixture thickens, stirring occasionally. Sift flour with baking powder and salt, work in Cottolene with tips of fingers, and mix to a soft dough with yolk of egg mixed with one-half cup of milk. Turn onto a floured board, knead slightly and roll out in a rectangular sheet one-fourth inch thick. Divide this into four pieces, longer than wide. Spread each with the blackberry sauce and roll up like jelly roll; wet the edges, press lightly to prevent unrolling. Lay on buttered sheet and brush tops with white of egg, sprinkle with sugar and a few grains cloves. Bake twenty-five minutes in a hot oven. Serve hot with remaining sauce kept hot over hot water or with 1/4 cup butter.
A biscuit-dough roll rather than a suet pudding, baked instead of steamed. The ingredient list omits the half cup of milk that appears in the method, so read the process through before you start.
- CottoleneA brand-name shortening from the N. K. Fairbank Company, made of cottonseed oil stiffened with beef suet, and heavily advertised in cookbooks of this period. Substitute an equal amount of vegetable shortening or lard, cut in cold.
- The missing milkHalf a cup of milk is called for in the process but never listed with the ingredients. Add it to the yolk and use it to bring the dough together; if the flour is thirsty you may need a spoonful more.
- Hot ovenThe book gives no temperature; "hot oven" in this period is usually taken as somewhere around 400-425F. Twenty-five minutes at that heat should brown the egg-white glaze and cook the dough through; the rolls are small, so check at twenty.
- Pastry flourLower in protein than all-purpose. Modern all-purpose works, but the crumb will be slightly tougher; the usual cornstarch swap (two tablespoons per cup) is aimed at cake flour and overshoots pastry flour a little.
- Cook the filling downThe sieved pulp with sugar must thicken to a jam consistency. A loose sauce will soak the dough and run out of the ends during baking, which is the usual failure with this dish.
- Sealing the rollsLeave a bare margin along the far edge, wet it, and press firmly. Setting the rolls seam side down on the sheet helps more than the pressing does.
- Ground cloves"A few grains" is literal, and a heavy hand will bury the blackberry.
- YieldFour rolls, each cutting into two or three portions; figure on six to eight servings with the reserved sauce.
- The butter alternativeThe closing line offers a quarter cup of butter in place of the sauce, most likely melted and poured over. Warm sauce is the better choice if you have any pulp left.
Roly-poly is an English pudding of the nineteenth century, traditionally a suet paste spread with jam, rolled, wrapped in a floured cloth and boiled or steamed for hours. American cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s repeatedly rewrote it as here: baking powder dough, shortening in place of suet, and a hot oven in place of the copper. The change tracks the spread of chemical leavening and the reliable kitchen range. Blackberries suggest late summer, though they ripen anywhere from July into September depending on the region, and cost nothing to anyone with a hedgerow.