Jam Roly-Poly

Jam roly-poly is the quintessential Victorian English steamed pudding, immortalised as a staple of the school dinner from the 1870s onwards and nicknamed, for its traditional wrapping in a floured cloth and its cylindrical shape, 'dead man's arm' or 'shirt-sleeve pudding'. It belongs to the great Victorian era of cheap, filling, flour-and-suet desserts devised to feed large households and schoolrooms economically, and it appears in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management of 1861 in its suet-pudding family. The jam was originally raspberry or any house-preserve, and the dish was steamed in a knotted cloth (the 'pudding cloth') suspended in a pan of boiling water. Custard, Britain's default pudding sauce, was the only acceptable accompaniment. By the mid-20th century it had become a shorthand for institutional British cooking, both loved and lampooned.

A dense, warm, slightly savoury suet dough, the jam having soaked partway through the spiral so the inner layers are stained crimson and the outer ones stay pale. Hot custard thins the stickiness.

The suet dough is made firm enough to roll but soft enough to steam light, a balance of self-raising flour, shredded suet and cold milk. It is rolled to a rectangle, spread with jam, leaving a border so it does not squeeze out, then rolled up Swiss-roll style and sealed at the seam. Traditionally it is wrapped in a floured pudding cloth, tied at both ends, which lets steam pass through while catching any leaking jam; modern versions often use foil. The two-hour steam sets the dough through and lets the jam partially permeate the layers. Custard, made with eggs, milk and sugar thickened with cornflour or yolks, is mandatory: its warmth and looseness are the counterweight to the dense, sticky pudding.