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Peach Rolls
Stew dried fruit, sweeten, and flavor to taste; make a good baking-powder crust, roll very thin, spread fruit on, putting thin slices of butter on the fruit, roll crust up, place in a pan four or five inches deep, to three or four rolls add one cup sugar, and a half cup butter; pour in hot water enough to cover them. Bake half an hour. Mrs. J. D. Simmons, Pontotoc, Miss.
A dried-fruit cobbler built as rolled logs poached in their own syrup — closer to what the upland South calls a fruit dumpling than to a pastry roll. The original assumes you know how to handle dried peaches and how hot your stove is, so both need filling in.
- The hinge: don't drown the crustThe original says "hot water enough to cover them," which will poach the tops as well as the bottoms. If you want browned tops, pour the water around the rolls until it comes about two-thirds up their sides, a deliberate departure from the printed instruction; the sugar and butter melt into it and the tops brown while the bottoms poach.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A hot oven helps set the crust before it absorbs liquid; around 400F is a reasonable modern setting. At that heat the recipe's half hour may not be enough — allow up to 40 to 50 minutes, until the syrup is thick and the tops are browned.
- The dried fruitRoughly 1 lb dried peaches, covered with water and simmered 20 to 30 minutes until plump, then sweetened to taste and drained well. Wet filling is the usual cause of a soggy roll; let it cool before it touches the dough.
- "A good baking-powder crust"An 1880s biscuit dough, not pie pastry: about 2 cups flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 4 tablespoons butter or lard cut in, and enough milk to make a soft dough. Roll it thin — a quarter inch — or the interior stays raw.
- Sugar and butter in the panThe cup of sugar and half cup of butter are not for the dough; they go into the pan with the water and become the sauce. Scatter them around the rolls rather than dumping them in one place.
- PanFour or five inches deep means a proper deep baking dish, not a sheet pan. Note that a standard 9x13 is only about two inches deep, so a deep 2-quart or larger dish is closer to what is specified. The syrup may boil over; set the dish on a lined sheet.
- Yield and servingThree or four rolls, each cut into two or three portions, serves six to eight. Serve warm with the pan syrup spooned over, and cream if you have it.
Dried fruit was the default winter fruit in Southern households well into the twentieth century: peaches were halved, pitted and dried on scaffolds or tin roofs in late summer, then stored in sacks and stewed back to life all year. The Dixie Cook Book, like most of the regional compilations of the 1880s, collected such recipes by name and town — Mrs. J. D. Simmons of Pontotoc, Mississippi, is credited here — which is why the instructions read as notes between cooks rather than as a formula. The dish belongs to the large family of Southern fruit rolls, dumplings and "cobblers" in which biscuit dough is baked in a sweetened liquid rather than under or over dry fruit; this particular version depends on chemical leavening, which is why the recipe specifies a baking-powder crust.