Jam roly-poly with homemade custard A nostalgic dessert

THIS was one of the first things I baked as a child. I remember rolling out the pastry with my mum, adding the jam and waiting at the oven door, full of anticipation for what I was about to taste. Served with a generous glug of warm custard, this sweet, jammy sponge takes me back to my youth. A real retro dessert, it’s proper comfort food.

Ingredients: Serves 6-8 Roly-poly ingredients

200g self-raising flour

75g caster sugar

Zest of ½ lemon

100g suet (can substitute butter or vegetarian suet)

50g butter and more for greasing 150ml milk

Jam of your choice

Custard ingredients

150ml whole milk 100g double cream 2 egg yolks

25g of sugar 1 vanilla pod

1tsp corn flour

Method:

Heat oven to Gas mark 6/200C/180C fan. Place a large roasting tin halffilled with water at the bottom, with an oven rack directly above the tray.

For the roly-poly, take one sheet of tinfoil about 30 x 40cm and another sheet of parchment paper the same size. Butter the parchment paper and place in on top of the foil, butter side down, then butter remaining side of parchment paper so it’s completely covered in grease.

Tip butter, flour, 50g sugar and grated lemon zest into a food processor and blitz until a rough dry dough has formed. Transfer to a bowl, add the suet, pour in the milk and work together with a cutlery knife until you get a sticky dough. Add a little more milk if need be.

Tip the dough out onto a floured surface and roll out to a square roughly 25 x 25cm. Spread the jam all over, stopping about 2cm before the end to leave an unjammed edge.

Roll the dough up from the opposite edge and then pinch the jam-free edge into the dough where it meets and pinch the ends too. Dust the roly-poly with the remaining sugar and carefully lift the rolled-up dough onto the greased paper, join-side down, then bring up the foiled paper around it loosely (you don’t want it too tightly wrapped as you need some room for it to expand).

Seal by scrunching the parcel along the edges and then lift it directly onto the rack above the tin. Cook for one hour.

While the roly-poly is baking you can make your custard. Add the milk, cream and vanilla pod into a pan over a low heat, stirring gently until the mixture starts to simmer. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse, ideally 45 minutes or so. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together with a wooden spoon (using the spoon rather than a whisk means less air and a denser custard), then pour in the warm vanilla liquid.

Pour this back into the pan and reheat over a low heat, whisking continuously so that you do not scramble your eggs. The custard is ready when the liquid thickens and coats the back of the wooden spoon. Once ready, pass through a sieve into a clean bowl or serving jug.

Once the pudding is ready, let it sit for five minutes before unwrapping. Slice thickly and serve with the warm custard.

PHOTOGRAPH: ALAN DONALDSON