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Cherry Roly Poly
To prepare a cherry roly poly, mix together 1 pint of flour, 1 tablespoonful of sugar, 1/2 teaspoonful of salt and 2 scant teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Rub in 2 large tablespoonfuls of butter and mix to a soft dough with sweet milk. Roll out a half inch thick and spread with a generous layer of pitted cherries. Dust with flour, add sugar according to the tartness of the fruit, roll up and pinch the ends together.
Lay on a buttered plate, steam for forty-five minutes, then place in a hot oven just long enough to dry off and very lightly color the top.
Serve with either a hard or soft sauce.
A steamed suet-less roly poly built on a baking-powder biscuit dough. The measurements are volumetric in the old style, and the steaming is what makes it work.
- A pint of flourFlour was measured by volume: 1 pint is 2 cups, roughly 8 1/2 to 9 oz. The "2 large tablespoonfuls" of butter is about 1 1/2 oz. Milk to a soft dough will be somewhere near 3/4 cup, added gradually.
- Sweet milkThis means ordinary fresh milk, as opposed to the soured or buttermilk that older recipes often call for. Whole milk is the closest match.
- Steam properly, and keep it steamingThe buttered plate goes on a rack over simmering water in a covered pot, and the water must not touch it or run dry over forty-five minutes. Keep the lid on; a lull in the steam gives you a heavy, damp centre.
- Roll looselyBiscuit dough swells as it steams. Roll the log up without tension and pinch the ends firmly, or the seam splits and the cherry juice runs out onto the plate.
- A hot oven'hot oven' in ranges of this kind is generally taken as somewhere around 400 to 450F, and the roll needs only a few minutes. The purpose is to dry the surface and take off the pallor that steaming leaves, not to bake the roll further.
- Sugar for the fruitThe recipe leaves the amount to the cook: sour cherries will want considerably more than sweet ones. The dusting of flour before rolling is there to thicken the juice.
- Hard sauce and soft sauceHard sauce is butter creamed with powdered sugar and a flavouring, served cold in a lump that melts over the hot pudding. Soft sauce here means a thin pouring sauce: a simple sugar-and-butter sauce thinned with water, or a light custard.
- YieldServes four to six, cut into thick slices across the roll.
Roly poly belongs to the British family of rolled and boiled puddings that came to American kitchens and stayed there, usually made with jam and beef suet and boiled in a floured cloth. What this version shows is the American adaptation: the suet is gone, replaced by butter, and the dough is leavened with baking powder rather than depending on steam and a heavy crust alone, which puts it much closer to a biscuit dough or a cobbler topping than to an English suet pudding. Steaming on a buttered plate rather than in a cloth is the later, tidier method. The cherries turn a pint of flour and a couple of spoonfuls of butter into a full family dessert.