3. Making a Roly-Poly Pudding

(1) Suet

As discussed in my previous blog post I planned to make my own roly-poly pudding. This is by using the similar ingredients as Mrs Beeton and Eliza Acton did in their Victorian cookbooks. This is mainly achieved by using suet the box that I used was the original atora.  

(2) Mixing ingredients

The recipe: 

softened butter, for greasing

200g self-raising flour and extra for dusting

100g of shredded suet

1tbsp of caster sugar 

pinch of salt 

150ml of milk or water (I used water)

6/7 tbsp of strawberry or raspberry jam (I used seedless raspberry)

This is a recipe from BBC good food's website. Which is a traditional jam roly-poly  http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/jam_roly_poly_36901

(3) Rolled pudding

I first started by preheating the oven to 200 C and greased a sheet of greaseproof paper with butter. Then I mixed the suet, flour, sugar and salt in a bowl and added the water which combined to form a soft dough. Then I rolled it out and spread raspberry jam on top. When I rolled it up it lost some of its spirals because it was a very soft dough. Once it was rolled I made a pleat in the greaseproof paper and put the pudding on top. This part is where the pudding drastically changes from the original recipes. Acton and Beeton both specify to use a cloth to wrap the pudding in, then tie up the ends and plunge the pudding into boiling water for 1/2 hours 

(5) Tin Foil

(4) Grease proof paper

The modern version of this recipe calls for greaseproof paper instead of cloth and then it is wrapped in tin/aluminium foil. When the pudding is wrapped in the paper it calls to be tied with string at the end. Then that package is wrapped in foil. After this is put on a roasting rack inside a roasting tin and boiling water is added to the bottom of the pan. It ended up going into the oven for 35 mins and after it was still a little soft. It was mainly because it was a soft wet dough. The jam ended up seeping out of the middle when it was removed from the paper and it split when trying to roll it over (the image is the underside of the pudding where it was rolled onto a plate). 

(6) The Pudding

Overall the taste is very good. I am surprised that the recipe hasn't changed much in so many years, we have modernised it to become a quicker pudding and also it is sweeter than what Acton or Beeton would have made. But when the taste test came it still had its rolls and what is a good jam roly-poly pudding without custard. 

(7) Jam Swirl

Eating such a simple pudding made me appreciate the Victorian way of making it, it was a sweet treat and was an easy pudding as long as they had the right ingredients. As Beeton said the pudding is fit for the nursery or the plain family pudding as it is a simple recipe.

Works and Images Cited:

Myers, David, and Simon King. "BBC Food - Recipes - Jam Roly-poly (The Hairy Bikers)."BBC Food. BBC, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/jam_roly_poly_36901>.

All Images within this post are my own.

2. The 'Roly-Poly Pudding'

One of the Stories that Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated is The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or, the Roly-Poly Pudding (1908) This story Is about a naughty kitten called Tom kitten who gets in trouble with the rats into his house and gets made into a roly-poly pudding This intrigued me because of the ingredients that were used within the text:

(1) Beatrix Potter Illustration

(2) Potter 73 quote

(figure 2)This use of ingredients made me want to research the proper way to make a roly-poly pudding. Throughout my research, I came across a recipe by Eliza Acton in her cookbook Modern Cookery for Private Families. It details a recipe for a suet pudding 'half a pound of fine stale bread-crumbs, three-quarters of a pound of flour, from ten to twelve ounces of beef-suet chopped extremely small, a large half-teaspoon of salt, and rather less of pepper, with two eggs and a little milk.' (Acton 408)

(3) Eliza Acton recipe

This is the first version I could find of a roly-poly pudding, within this recipe Acton also has a variation only for fruit. It also follows the same principle of making the mixture, rolling it up and boiling it in water to cook the pudding as modern day recipes follow. The relation to Beatrix Potter and the quote I just used from her work, is, in my opinion, a nod towards the different recipes that you can use. Acton says that you can use 'a paste as for a beef-steak pudding, either with suet or butter'(408) by getting Samuel Whiskers to argue about this within Potters text it shows her knowledge of a roly-poly pudding recipe and how to make it. The characters go with butter and dough in the end which in relation to the text is the most simple. Potter using this also shows the inclusion real food and ingredients into her work

(4) Mrs Beeton Recipe

Mrs Beeton's book of household management also has a very similar version to Eliza Acton of a roly-poly pudding. This is because she used the recipe from Acton's book in her own. This time it is a variation called a rolled treacle pudding which is made with suet or lard. But it still holds the idea of a rolled boiled pudding. Beeton's version is portrayed as a favourite with the children and also can be used for a plain family dinner.  

With this in mind, I want to try and create a version of my own roly-poly pudding which will follow the same principle of suet, flour, salt, sugar etc.

Works Cited

Acton, Eliza. Modern Cookery for Private Families. London: Elek, 1860. Google Archives. Harvard University. Web. 22 Feb. 2017. <https://archive.org/details/moderncookeryfo00actogoog>.

Potter, Beatrix. The Beatrix Potter Collection. Vol. Two. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2014. Print.

Images Cited 
(1) Potter, Beatrix. "Kitten roly-poly pudding" Digital image Chessalee WordPress blog 2008. 22 Feb 2017
https://chessaleeinlondon.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/beatrix-potters-hill-top-farm/
(2) Foord, Korie. "Potter 73 quote" 2017 JPEG image
(3) Foord, Korie. "Eliza Acton" 2017 JPEG image
(4) Foord, Korie. "Mrs Beeton" 2017 JPEG image

1. Introduction to the Blog...

Welcome to the first of many posts about the fabulous food of Beatrix Potter. 

(1)© Illustration to The Tale of Peter Rabbit, 1902. © Frederick Warne & Co., 2010

From a very young age, I loved the world that Beatrix Potter created, the colourful illustrations to the funny or sympathetic tales about animals getting into trouble. However as an adult I realise now how it can relate to both generations, we both skim over most of the food portrayal in Beatrix Potters writing. Many of her short stories are packed full of food and descriptions about how they are seen and interacted with. From needing food to being and becoming food Beatrix Potter explores a wide range of what it means to be human and animal. 

(2)My third edition (paperbacks)

Whether it was Peter Rabbit in Mr McGregor's garden or the two bad mice in the dolls House Beatrix Potter made sure food played a central part in her characters lives. 

(3)My very first edition

(4) My second edition (smaller)

Within this blog, I want to explore the way in which Beatrix Potter has incorporated food into her work and how it can relate to the literary and modern world around it. I have a few different editions of her work and each edition shows her illustrations in colour and in black and white. The darker the stories get within her work the darker the illustrations become. 

Alongside the main focus on Beatrix Potter, I will be looking at  the Victorian era and a few recipes and texts that correlate and inspired Beatrix within the stories. By doing this I hope to analyse the way food is presented within her work mainly focusing on being food, becoming food and needing food. 

Works cited

Potter, Beatrix. The Beatrix Potter Collection. Vol. One. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2014. Print.

Images cited
(1) Potter, Beatrix. "Peter Rabbit" Digital Image. Victoria and Albert Museum. Web 2016.  13th Feb 2017
(2) Foord, Korie. "Beatrix Potter edition 3" 2017 JPEG file
(3) Foord, Korie. "Beatrix Potter edition 1" 2017 JPEG file
(4) Foord, Korie. "Beatrix Potter edition 2" 2017 JPEG file