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Dessert

Roly-poly Pudding

A sweet rolled pudding made with flour, lard, butter, preserve, and salt, boiled for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roly-poly Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour and lard until crumbly.

  2. Roll out the mixture and cut it into four pieces.

  3. Place a lump of butter on each piece.

  4. Flour each piece well.

  5. Stack the pieces on top of each other.

  6. Roll the stack out to 6 inches wide and 12 inches long.

Fill and shape

  1. Spread the preserve thickly over the dough.

  2. Wet the edges of the dough to seal it.

  3. Roll the dough up tightly.

  4. Tie the rolled pudding securely in a well-floured cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the pudding for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with melted butter or cream and sugar.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + plumtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together710 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Flour + plumtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the filling and keeps the roll intact while boiling.
Lard
Rubbed into the flour to coat it and make the dough short and tender.
Butter
Melts during cooking, adding richness and moisture to the layered dough.
Preserve
Provides sweetness, fruity flavour and moisture inside the roll.

The step that matters

Sealing and tying the roll. If the wetted edges do not seal and the cloth is loose, the filling can leak out during the long boil. Tight rolling also keeps the layers together so the pudding holds its shape.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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