Skip to main content
Dessert

Roly-poly Jam Pudding

A steamed pudding made from flour, suet, and jam rolled into a log.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,383 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roly-poly Jam Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Finely shred and chop the suet, using a little flour to prevent sticking.

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour, chopped suet, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Gradually add cold water to form a stiff paste.

Shape the pudding

  1. Turn the paste onto a floured board and roll it out thinly.

  2. Spread the jam over the paste, leaving a half-inch border.

  3. Wet the edges of the paste.

  4. Roll the paste up tightly and press the ends together.

Wrap and boil

  1. Wring out a pudding cloth in warm water.

  2. Sprinkle the cloth with flour.

  3. Place the pudding in the center with the seam side down.

  4. Roll the cloth around the pudding.

  5. Tie the ends securely, leaving room for expansion.

  6. Boil in a saucepan of water for 2 hours.

  7. Turn out onto a hot dish.

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 + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and bread barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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 structure of the paste that holds the pudding together while it boils.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pastry tender and moist as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the pastry rise lightly.
Bread-crumbs
Absorbs moisture and adds a softer, lighter crumb to the pudding.
Jam
Provides sweetness, fruity flavor, and moisture inside the rolled pastry.

The step that matters

Tie the ends securely, leaving room for expansion. The pudding swells as the dough heats and the leavening gas expands. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the pudding can burst or become misshapen, and loose wrapping lets water seep in and soak the crust.

“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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes