Warming Pudding: Treacle Roly Poly

Many moons ago, for reasons I can't quite remember, my next door neighbour Oliver asked (using the word loosely here) if I could make him a treacle roly poly. I said I would and then got round to it about 3 months later. I have been rather busy but also I was putting it off because I'd never made one before and was slightly terrified at the prospect of it.

Also, there are very few recipes out there for treacle roly poly; there are loads for jam ones and I wasn't sure whether I could substitute treacle for jam and just proceed in the same way.

I decided I could and went with this recipe from the trusty ol' BBC Good Food website. 

It turns out this was quite a good thing for me to practice: not only have I never made suet pastry but I have also never rolled or steamed anything so I was experiencing a few new things here.

So the suet pastry - what a weird thing. I felt so wartime getting involved with it. Being a veggie, I opted to get the vegetarian suet because, even though I wasn't going to be eating any of it, I just couldn't get my head round the beef fat issue. It's gross. It's similar to how I now feel about gelatin (after previously being able to devour a bag of Haribo Fangtastics in one sitting.)

The actual putting together of the pastry went quite well but I was a bit unsure of how it should have looked; it was bit lumpy. After a bit of Googling I found out that suet has quite a high melting point and that those little lumps would only disappear during baking. Phew.

Next issue: rolling the pastry. Good Food suggest that you leave a gap at one end of your pastry so you can roll it up and seal it. Well I did that but I think I started rolling from the wrong end. I rolled from the gap end which meant that all the treacle I had blobbed in the middle squeezed right over to the other side and I was left with a very oozy meeting point. TREACLE EVERYWHERE!! That stuff is sticky. But I carried on and got it on to my greaseproof/foil blanket and managed to get it in the oven.

The steaming: oh my gosh, how exciting! I had to put a roasting tin full of boiling water on the lowest shelf and place my wrapped poly on the shelf above. This was a frightening experience and something I had to put a lot of trust in; I am so used to being able to tell by sight whether a cake is done or not that the foil armour on the pudding scared me a little. I basically baked it for the hour that was suggested and then another ten minutes just in case. I also don't know whether it should have risen a bit more. It doesn't look so appetising in the below pictures.

I should have tasted it really - it was definitely cooked but who knows whether it was too dry or a bit soggy. But I got no feedback on that front from the 3 boys who inhaled it but no one died so I think it was fine.

The verdict? According to Oliver it needed a load more treacle. I thought I'd put in loads but maybe it had seeped out because I didn't get my roll right. I also thought that maybe treacle sinks into the pastry more than jam does so some of it may have been lost that way. I'll just go crazy next time.

But other than that it went down well and tasted liked it should. But what wouldn't taste good fresh out of the oven and smothered in custard?

As well as being a first for suet pudding, this post is going to be my first entry into Calendar Cakes as hosted by Laura Loves Cake & Dollybakes. Hurrah! This month's challenge is 'Puddings' so I think this fits the brief nicely.

Do head on over to Laura's blog to see what other yummy puddings some talented bakers have been whipping up this month.

Vicky 

Slow Gin

(Warning – this post is not about cake!)

 

I am late for everything. It's not that I don't try. I try really hard. Honest! It's worse when I have loads of time because then I think 'oh, I have loads of time' and then I start faffing about, the time disappears, and I'm late. It's at the point now that people just expect me to be late: last one ready, last one there, birthday cards/presents 2 days late... That doesn't stop the guilt I feel when I am late, because I do feel bad, but it also doesn't give me any incentive to change my ways.

Plus, I have scientific proof that it is imbedded in my genes.

But now it seems that this lateness has drifted into making my sloe gin breaking all the rules of an age old tradition! :/

Sloe berries come from the Blackthorn Tree. What is interesting about the Blackthorn tree is that it is surrounded in mystery and is depicted in folklore as a tree of ill omen. *Geek alert* A branch of the blackthorn tree is also used in a Snatcher’s wand in Harry Potter. Harry does not enjoy it so much when he is forced to use said wand. Strangely, this endears me to the tree and makes me feel like I’ve made some special potion and not just a (hopefully) delicious alcoholic beverage. Let’s ignore that it is also associated with death… Grim.)

The berries produced on the Blackthorn are round and a beautiful deep blue but they are horribly bitter to eat. Even the birds have to be desperate to eat them. They are, however, excellent for making gin.

I’ve tried very hard to find out how sloe gin actually came into being but only seem to be able to find the same very elusive answer: the people of Britain have been making sloe gin for hundreds of years. But whatever the reason, sloe gin has been a wintery/Christmassy tradition for a long time, and I managed to get behind on the traditional processes.

The usual time to gather your sloes is the end of October/beginning of November, and normally when the sloes have experienced their first frost. Because sloes have been so sparse this year and we were worried about the longevity of the ones we did find*, I collected mine at the beginning of October and popped them in the freezer to simulate the ‘frost’ part. 

(*I have become one of those people who keep their source of sloes a closely guarded secret, even more so because they have been in such short supply this year. Sorry!)

This is where I got behind.

For some reason, my sloes got left in the freezer until late November. The tradition of sloe gin is that they are collected and put into the gin so that enough time has passed for the flavours to infuse and to be ready to drink at Christmas. Mine won’t be ready.

I was so excited about giving my homemade gin as Christmas presents but that is definitely not going to happen this year. Although I have read that the gin tastes better 1 -3 years after the berries have been removed and the drink has had time to mature so I am going to pretend that this was my plan all along.   

Anyway here is my ever so simple, and ever so late, recipe for sloe gin, which, if you managed to find any sloes, should have been started months ago.

Recipe:

1 litre gin

1lb sloe berries

500g caster sugar

You will also need a couple of bottles or a large container to keep the gin in. The vessel also needs a lid so you can shake the mixture. A person with common sense probably doesn’t need to be told that the litre of gin and the berry/sugar mixture won’t fit in the litre bottle the gin comes in, but I made that mistake and thought I’d highlight that you’ll need a vessel of bigger volume!

Method:

-        Weigh out the sloes and prick each one to break the skin. (Folklore says this should

       be done with something silver!)

-        Pop them into your vessel

-        Weigh out the sugar and pour it into the vessel with the sloes

-        Pour in your gin

-        Give the vessel a quick shake and tip to make sure everything is getting mixed 

       together

-        For the first couple of weeks the mixture will need to be shaken every other day,

       after that it just needs a bit of a tip about once a week or so.

-        Leave the sloes in the gin for about 2-3 months

-       After this time, strain the sloe gin through a very fine sieve or muslin into a

       sterilised bottle and enjoy (next Christmas)!

This better be worth it... 

Vicky x