Jottage from Lancaster - Jam Roly Poly

This is a blog which charts a momentous moment (if such a moment can exist). Heather bought John a birthday card with a recipe for Jam Roly Poly on it - and gave him a challenge to actually make one. Anyone who knows John will know about his skills with toast, eggs (boiled AND poached) and maybe Shreddies. But no one would ever associate him with baking, even though all of us suspected he would actually enjoy 

it if he tried it.


But today he decided would be the day he had a go. We had the birthday card with the details, but it was a bit vague - needing a bit of egg, a dash of sugar, a pinch of salt, so we ventured on to the internet to find a clear and unambiguous recipe. We ended up with a Nigella one - Hugh's flaming jam roly poly looked fun - but maybe a tad advanced for a beginner...


Steaming a jam roly poly is all very well, but I don't have a steamer which it would fit so we wanted something we could put into the oven. We needed suet, and our trip to the Post Office in Wray soon yielded the familiar red, yellow and blue packet (how old is the design for Atora suet? are there any other kinds of suet? how long will the rest of his packet languish in my cupboard?)

With surprising ease, he followed all the instructions and with only a little prompting from me not to put in the last ounce of flour left in the bottom of the packet 'just to finish it up' - it all seemed to be coming together.

A little fuzzy uncertainty along the way...

So the resultant rather floppy, messy jam roly poly went into the oven for 40 or so minutes.

Uncooked jam roly poly

And after 40 mins the finished pud.

Definitely a success and we gobbled up a sizeable portion each with custard while sitting by the fire looking at the drizzly rain outside. Perfection!