Roly-poly Pudding

Pouding roulé à la confiture teaches patience before heat. The full hour of rest is not idle time: it relaxes the firm suet paste so it rolls thinly without springing back or tearing. After ninety minutes in its cloth, that plain paste becomes tender and close-grained, with garnet jam winding through every slice and fruit sauce brightening the plate.

The source formula needs neither a saucier nor a salamander. Its brigade convenience was a deep boiler already at the boil, a drawer of purpose-kept pudding cloths, and a full batch sized for service. For four, use a half batch of Dumpling and Pudding Pastes (No. 2361), its proportions intact, a washed cotton cloth, and a large lidded pot. One cook, one stove, one evening, with nothing essential lost.

The dedicated boiler is scaffolding. Cooking inside a buttered, floured cloth, rolling the paste one-fifth of an inch thick, and giving it the full ninety minutes are the dish itself, so those stay. Rest the paste for the entire hour before the rolling pin touches it. That is the hinge on which the pudding turns.