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Blackberry Roll
Sift one pint of flour with one teaspoonful of baking powder; mix into this one tablespoonful of butter and onefourth teaspoonful salt; add three-quarters of a cupful of milk and roll out onethird of an inch thick. Spread plentifully with any kind of berries, sift sugar over and roll. Bake one-half hour and serve hot with the following:
Sauce-Cream together one-half cupful of sugar and one tablespoonful of butter; one cupful of mashed berries and one cupful of boiling milk. Wet one teaspoonful of corn-starch in enough milk to dissolve it and stir in slowly. Let boil three minutes and serve.
A biscuit-dough jelly roll baked around fresh berries, with a berry cream sauce. The original gives no oven temperature, which is the main gap to fill.
- Oven temperatureNone is stated, as was normal when ranges had no thermometer. A baking-powder dough of this kind wants 400F; half an hour at that heat browns the roll and cooks the centre through.
- A pint of flourFlour was measured by volume in a pint measure: about 2 cups, roughly 8 to 9 oz. With 1 tablespoon butter and 3/4 cup milk this is a lean biscuit dough, softer than pastry and meant to be handled quickly.
- Roll it, do not stretch itAt one-third inch the dough is thin and the berry juice will find any weak spot. Roll from the long side, pinch the seam and ends closed, and lay the roll seam down so the filling stays inside.
- Berries and juiceBlackberries release a great deal of liquid. Sugar sifted over them draws out more, so scatter the sugar just before rolling and bake on a rimmed sheet or in a shallow dish that will catch the syrup.
- The sauce is not creamed butter"Cream together" here only means work the sugar and butter smooth; the mashed berries and boiling milk go in after, then the slaked cornstarch. Add the cornstarch to the hot mixture in a thin stream while stirring or it will set in lumps.
- Three minutes means three minutesCornstarch needs a full boil to thicken and lose its raw taste, but berry acid breaks down cornstarch on long cooking. Time the three minutes and take it off the heat.
- CurdlingMilk boiled with acidic mashed berries may separate. Stir in the berries off the boil, or use half cream, and expect a slightly grainy sauce rather than a glossy one.
- YieldNo yield is given; one roll of this size will serve about six. Both roll and sauce are meant to be served hot.
Fruit rolls of this type belong to the same family as the English jam roly-poly and the American berry "pinwheel" or shortcake roll: a quick chemically leavened dough spread with whatever fruit was ripe, rolled, and baked or steamed. Baking powder, in wide commercial use by the later nineteenth century, is what makes this version so fast; an older version of the same idea would have used a suet crust and a pudding cloth. The recipe is of a common cheap-and-quick type: one bowl, storecupboard staples, a summer fruit that cost nothing if you picked it, and a sauce made from more of the same fruit.