Home › Desserts › Berry Roly Poly
Berry Roly Poly
To make a roly poly mix together 1 pint of sifted flour, 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, 1 teaspoonful of sugar and 1 teaspoonful of baking-powder and rub in 2 teaspoonfuls of butter. Stir this to a soft dough with sweet milk, roll out, spread thickly with berries and a few spoonfuls of sugar, roll up tightly and pinch the ends together. Arrange on a greased pan and steam for half an hour, then place in a hot oven just long enough to dry off the crust. Serve with it a hard sauce, coloring part of it with a few crushed berries; to add to its appearance put the latter in a cornucopia made of writing paper, cut off the tip with a sharp scissors and squeeze it out as a spiral over and around the white portion which is heaped on a flat glass dish.
A steamed suet-less pudding roll of the plainest kind, built on a biscuit dough rather than pastry. The measurements are by volume in the American style of the period, and two of them need attention before you start.
- A pint of flourFlour was measured by volume: a pint is 2 cups, roughly 8-9 oz of sifted all-purpose flour. Sift first, then measure, as the text specifies.
- The butter is under-statedThe butter is very lean -- Two teaspoonfuls of butter in 2 cups of flour gives a dough closer to a dumpling than a biscuit. Whether this is a misprint for tablespoonfuls or simply a very plain crust cannot be settled from the text; 2-3 tablespoons rubbed in will give a more tender result.
- Baking powderOne teaspoon per 2 cups of flour is light by modern standards, where 1 teaspoon per cup is normal. Period baking powders were sold at varying strengths. Two teaspoons is safer for a dough that has to survive half an hour of steam.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh milk, named to distinguish it from sour or buttermilk, which called for soda instead of baking powder. Whole milk, added a little at a time until the dough just holds together.
- Steaming on a greased panThe roll goes on a greased pan or plate inside a covered steamer or a large lidded pot fitted with a rack above simmering water. Keep the water at a steady simmer for the full half hour and do not let it boil dry; lifting the lid repeatedly will slow the rise.
- A hot ovenThe recipe gives no temperature; "hot oven" in period usage is conventionally read as somewhere around 400-450F. The roll is already cooked through at this point, so it wants five to ten minutes only, just to set and dry the pale steamed surface.
- Hard sauceButter creamed with powdered sugar and a flavouring, served cold and firm so it melts into the hot pudding. Roughly 1/2 cup butter to 1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar; vanilla, sherry or brandy were all usual.
- The paper cornucopiaAn improvised piping bag. Use baking parchment rather than writing paper, which may carry inks, sizing or coatings that have no business in food. A small piping bag does the same job.
- YieldNo yield is given; one roll of this size would plausibly serve four to six. Firm berries -- blackberries, raspberries or halved strawberries -- hold up best, and the roll must be pinched shut hard at the seam and ends, as the recipe directs, or the juice escapes into the steamer.
The roly-poly is an English pudding of the nineteenth-century domestic kitchen: a sheet of dough spread with jam or fruit, rolled, and boiled in a floured cloth. American recipes of the period often steam the roll on a plate rather than in a cloth, and a baking-powder biscuit dough of the kind used here appears alongside the older suet crust. A pint of flour, a spoonful or two of butter, milk and whatever berries were in season made a hot dessert at very little expense. The instruction for piping tinted hard sauce through a paper cone suggests that economy was expected in the ingredients rather than in the presentation.