Leanne, from Te Awamutu...
Steamed Or Baked Jam Roly Poly
This recipe has survived many economic resessions, (the great depression being the worst), both wars, haymaking time and large families, it goes back quite a few generations.
My Aunt used to serve this recipe for lunch on the farm, she would make it about four days a week and in between she would make steamed puddings, it was always served with custard and ice cream, and always followed by a sandwich if anyone was still hungry. She told me this is how her family got through many hard ships and that this recipe was worth its weight in gold as she had a family of seven children and three of those were boys, who had hollow legs! The family worked hard out on the farm and they would always come in extremely hungry, especially at haymaking time, they had none of the modern conveniences we have today, mostly everything was done by hand.
So for me this recipe is definately comfort food, when I eat a slice, it reminds me of everyone sitting around the large wooden table at the farm, laughing, talking, sharing the food and time together before having to go back out into the hot paddock to work it off!
Ingredients
- 1 cup (150g) self raising flour
- Plus extra for dusting
- 2 tablespoons caster sugar
- 75 grams powdered suet mix
- 100 mls milk
- 1/2 cup (160 g) thick blackberry jam, or dark plum jam or black cherry or blueberry jam
- Custard to serve
Directions
- My Aunty always doubled her recipes.
- Preheat oven to 200°C.
- Grease a 40 cm sheet of baking paper.
- Then set aside.
- Sift flour in a bowl,
- stir in sugar, suet and a pinch of salt.
- Add milk and mix well with your hands to form a firm dough. Tip on to a lightly floured surface and gently knead for 1 to 2 minutes until smooth.
- Roll out to a 20 cm x 20 cm rectangle.
- Spread thickly with the jam.
- Leaving a 1 cm border on all sides of dough.
- Roll up rightly from 1 short side and pinch the ends to seal.
- To steam:
- Put the parcel onto the baking paper and wrap well,
- making sure to tuck in the ends,
- then put this onto a large sheet of foil and wrap the package again.
- Put onto a wire rack that is sitting into the bottom of a baking dish.
- Add water to the baking dish to the level just underneath the package.
- Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.
- To check if it has cooked, undo the foil liner and baking paper liner and it should be golden brown and spring back when touched.
- If it needs more cooking, rewrap and cook an extra 5 minutes. Then when done, open the wrapping, slice the roly poly into slices and serve with the custard and vanilla ice cream, French vanilla is nice too.
- To Bake:
- Put the jam roly poly in a greased roasting dish, seam side down,
- do not wrap the mixture in any of the paper or tin foil,
- bake at 160°C on fan bake or 170° C in normal oven and baste every five minutes so that the top doesn’t dry out, bake for 30 to 45 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.
- Baste:
- 30 to 50 grams butter
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons golden syrup
- 1 to 2 teaspoons lemon juice can be added if desired
- Melt butter, sugar, golden syrup and lemon juice in the water in a saucepan over a medium heat. Baste over the roly poly
| Serves | Cooking Time | Prep Time |
|---|---|---|
| 10 to 12 | approx 30 to 45 minutes | 10 to 15 minutes |
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