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Steamed Berry Roll
Prepare a rich biscuit dough, using 2 tablespoonfuls of butter and I heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder to 1 pint of flour. Roll out in a long sheet about half an inch thick. Spread with a thick layer of berries sweetened to taste.
Roll up tightly as possible-like a jelly roll-and pinch the ends together. Lay on a buttered plate or shallow pan, and steam for forty minutes, then place in the oven to dry off and color slightly. Serve with a soft or hard sauce. All kinds of berries, stoned cherries, cut peaches and other fruits sweetened to taste may be used in the same way.
A pudding-cloth dessert adapted to the steamer: biscuit dough rolled around fruit, steamed until light, then briefly dried in the oven. The original omits the liquid entirely, which is the main thing to sort out before you start.
- The missing liquidA pint of flour is 2 cups, roughly 8-9 oz. To bring that plus 2 tablespoons butter and the baking powder into a soft biscuit dough you need about 2/3 to 3/4 cup of milk. Add it gradually; the dough should be soft enough to roll but not sticky.
- Baking powderOne heaping teaspoon to 2 cups of flour is light by current standards, and older powders were often single-acting. Two level teaspoons of modern double-acting baking powder gives a better rise in a steamed dough, which gets no oven spring to help it.
- Keep the juice inBerries throw a lot of liquid once heated, and a soaked seam will burst. Toss the sweetened fruit with a tablespoon of flour or two teaspoons of cornstarch, leave a clear inch of dough at each edge, and pinch the seam and ends firmly.
- Steaming rigA buttered shallow pan set on a rack over simmering water in a covered stockpot works; so does a covered roasting pan on the stovetop. The water must not touch the pan, and the lid must stay on. Top up with boiling water if the pot runs low during the forty minutes.
- The oven finishThe recipe gives no temperature. "Dry off and color slightly" points to a fairly hot oven; something in the region of 400-425F for 5 to 10 minutes will do it. The steamed surface is pale and damp, and this step firms it. Watch it closely; the fruit sugars at the seam catch quickly.
- Hard sauceButter creamed with powdered sugar and a little vanilla or brandy, chilled firm and sliced onto the hot roll. "Soft sauce" generally means a pouring sauce -- often the same creamed butter and sugar let down with cream, milk or a beaten egg -- though period recipes for it vary.
- YieldNo yield is given; a roll made from a pint of flour will cut into about six generous slices. Serve it hot; a steamed biscuit dough turns heavy once cold.
Steamed puddings were a mainstay sweet of coal-range and boiling-pot kitchens, and this roll is a close relative of the English suet roly-poly, in which a fruit or jam filling is rolled in a paste, wrapped in a floured cloth and boiled. A baking-powder biscuit dough in place of suet paste uses less fat and cooks in forty minutes rather than the hour or two a boiled roly-poly wants. The instruction to finish it in the oven suggests a kitchen with both a steamer and a serviceable oven, using steam for lightness and dry heat for color. It is a cheap dessert -- a pint of flour, two tablespoons of butter and a bowl of berries -- and the closing line inviting cherries, peaches "and other fruits" shows the method mattered more than any particular fruit.