Home › The Principles of Cookery › LEMON ROLY-POLY PUDDING (excellent)
LEMON ROLY-POLY PUDDING (excellent)
Take the pulp from two large, fresh lemons. Remove the pips, weigh the lemons, and boil them with an equal weight of sugar for a quarter of an hour. Turn the mixture out to cool. Mix six ounces of finely-shredded suet with three-quarters of a pound of flour, add a pinch of salt, and as much water as will make it into a firm paste. Roll it out about half an inch in thickness, spread the lemon mixture upon it, roll it round and round into a long pudding, pinch the ends securely, tie it in a floured cloth, put it into boiling water, and let it boil quickly until done enough, which will be in about two hours. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A plain suet crust wrapped round a quick lemon conserve and boiled in a cloth. Nothing here is difficult, but two details decide the outcome: how loosely the roll is tied, and keeping the water at a genuine boil for the full two hours.
- What gets weighedThe instruction is to take the pulp from the lemons and remove the pips; the text then says to 'weigh the lemons', so it is not clear whether the whole fruit or only the pulp is meant. Two large lemons yield roughly 4-5 oz (120-140 g) of pulp and juice, and the sugar is matched to that weight. The peel does not appear to be used.
- The lemon fillingFifteen minutes at a boil reduces the pulp and sugar to a thick, sharp conserve, closer to marmalade than curd. It must be completely cold before it goes on the pastry, or it will melt into the suet crust and run out at the ends.
- SuetSix ounces (170 g) of shredded suet to three-quarters of a pound (340 g) of flour is the standard half-fat suet crust. Packet beef suet or vegetarian suet both work; if you shred your own from fresh beef fat, toss it in a spoonful of the flour to keep it separate.
- FlourThe recipe names no raising agent and the pudding relies on steam alone, which gives a dense, close crust. Modern cooks who want it lighter use self-raising flour, or add 2 teaspoons of baking powder to plain flour. The water quantity is unstated: about 6-7 fl oz (180-200 ml) gives a firm, non-sticky paste.
- RollingLeave a clear inch of bare pastry at each end and along one long edge, dampen those margins, and roll up from the opposite long edge so the result is the long pudding the recipe describes. Pinch and pleat the ends firmly; a leaking end will sweeten the cooking water and leave the pudding hollow.
- The clothScald the cloth, wring it out, and flour the inside generously so a skin forms against the pastry. Wrap loosely with a pleat down the middle to allow expansion, and tie the ends like a cracker. A double layer of pleated baking parchment inside foil, tied at both ends, does the same job.
- BoilingStraight into water already at a rolling boil, and keep it there for the full two hours, topping up from a kettle of boiling water. Water that drops off the boil or is topped up cold will give a heavy, sodden crust.
- ServingFour to five portions, as stated. Unwrap onto a warmed dish and cut in thick slices; custard or plain cream is the usual accompaniment. Best served hot, straight from the pot.
Roly-poly is one of the great Victorian boiled suet puddings, a family of dishes built on cheap flour, beef suet and long unattended cooking over a fire that was lit anyway. Jam was the commonest filling, and the boiled-in-a-cloth version acquired a run of grimly affectionate nicknames, dead man's arm and shirt-sleeve pudding among them, often said, though the story is no more than folk etymology, to come from the practice of boiling it in a sleeve when no pudding cloth was to hand. The lemon version here is a step up in cost and trouble: instead of spooning on shop jam, the cook makes a small batch of lemon conserve first. Cassell's marks it "excellent" and puts it at sixpence for five people. The suet crust and the floured cloth were basic techniques a cook learned once and then applied to a dozen puddings.