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Treacle Roly-Poly
Either a plain short paste or a suet one may be used. Roll it out half an inch thick, cover with treacle and bread-crumbs, leaving at least an inch at the edges clear of the treacle. Then roll up firmly, and pinch the edges together after moistening them. Tie up in a cloth that has been brushed over with butter or clarified fat, and boil for about two hours. For a baked pudding use a short or flaky paste, roll up tightly, and bake in a tin with the join of the pudding downwards. Probable cost, 8d. or 10d. for a moderate-sized pudding.
A steamed or boiled suet roll filled with treacle and crumbs, from an era when a floured cloth did the work of a pudding basin. The proportions are left to the cook, so a working scale is useful.
- TreacleBritish treacle here means cane syrup; it may be the dark, slightly bitter black treacle or the lighter kind, and the recipe does not say which. Golden syrup gives a much sweeter, milder pudding and is common in modern versions.
- Why the breadcrumbsThey are not filler. Treacle alone will run out of the roll and burn or seep into the cloth; fresh white crumbs absorb it and hold the filling in place. Allow roughly 2 tablespoons of crumbs per 3 tablespoons of treacle.
- A workable pastry quantityFor a moderate-sized pudding, 8 oz self-raising flour to 4 oz shredded suet with a pinch of salt and cold water to bind gives the suet paste. "Short paste" for the baked version means plain shortcrust.
- The clear inch of edgeThis is the hinge of the recipe. Treacle carried to the edge stops the seam sealing, and the filling escapes into the water. Leave the border dry, damp it, and pinch hard.
- The clothA clean cotton or linen tea towel, brushed with butter or clarified fat as the recipe directs, is tied loosely enough for the suet to swell — a tight cloth gives a dense roll. Modern practice is to wrap in greased baking parchment first, then foil or the cloth, and steam rather than fully immerse.
- Boiling timeAbout two hours suits a suet paste and is not an exaggeration. Keep the water at a steady simmer and topped up with boiling water; cooks traditionally held that letting it go off the boil makes the pudding heavy.
- The baked versionThe recipe gives no oven setting; a hot oven, roughly 400–425F for 35–40 minutes, is a reasonable modern equivalent. Seam down in the tin, as instructed, so leaking syrup is trapped underneath rather than spilling and scorching.
- Yield and servingThe quantity above serves four to six, cut in thick diagonal slices. Custard or thin cream is the usual accompaniment, and a squeeze of lemon in the treacle cuts the sweetness.
Roly-poly belongs to the family of boiled suet puddings that dominated British domestic cooking once the pudding cloth came into general use in the seventeenth century, freeing the pudding from the animal's gut or stomach that had held it before. The name is usually read as simply descriptive nursery language for something rolled up, recorded in the nineteenth century alongside variants like jam roly-poly and, in schoolboy slang, "dead man's arm" or "dead man's leg" from the shape of the cloth-wrapped roll. What the recipe does teach are the basic manipulations of suet paste: rolling to an even thickness, sealing a seam, and the long steady boil. The cost note — eightpence or tenpence — marks it as thrift food, filling and cheap, treacle being far less expensive than sugar or preserves in a working household.