Food and Cooking

Comfort Food: Baked Roly-Poly Pudding With Fruit

Winter is the time for comfort food and there is little that says comfort food better than an aromatic home-baked roly-poly pudding.

A roly-poly pudding is traditionally made with a jam or fruit filling rolled up in a suet dough pastry like a Swiss roll. It is a heavy dessert which generally takes hours to make. This version, however, is a breeze as it cooks in the oven for only 40 minutes and – bonus – is baked in its own sweet and fruity sauce.

This recipe calls for tinned pears but you can play around with different fruit fillings. Apple, raisins and cinnamon is one winning combo, and mixed berries are another. Although it is a saucy pud, serve with custard for a creamy final touch.

Roly-Poly Dessert Recipe

Course: Dessert   Cuisine: South African   Difficulty: Easy
Prep time
20minutes
Cooking time
40minutes
Total time
1hour

A real South African comfort dish, this roly-poly pudding has a fruit filling.

INGREDIENTS
400 g tinned fruit of your choice (2 tins), strained and sliced. Set the juice aside.

500 ml cake flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

125 g butter

2 eggs, beaten

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE
juice from the 2 tins of fruit

3 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon cornflour (Mazeina), heaped

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Roly Poly pudding with custard

METHOD – DOUGH
1.Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2.Grease a suitable oven dish.
3.Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
4.Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture is crumbly.
5.Add the two beaten eggs and a little milk, spoon by spoon. Mix with your fingers until it has formed a soft dough.
6.Dust a surface with flour and roll the dough out quite thinly.
7.Spread the fruit onto the dough.
8.From the long side, roll the dough up like a Swiss roll keeping the fruit in place.
9.Cut the roll into 2½ centimetres slices.
10.Place neatly in the oven dish.

METHOD – SAUCE
1.Heat the sauce from the fruit. Add in the cornflour and butter and mix well.
2.Pour over the pudding using the back of a large spoon.
3.Bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes.

NOTES
Serve with hot or cold custard.

Recipe by Irene Muller – Southafrican.com