Rich biscuit dough the star of Apple Roly-Poly Pudding

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The apple dumpling recipe from a few weeks ago elicited some wonderful memory-filled comments. Grace Perkins, 96, of Bangor described her mother’s apple dumplings and declared that cheese, bacon or anything of the sort in a baked apple or dumpling was “heresy.” Virginia Tozier in Enfield recalled her grandmother-in-law Gramie Ethel’s apple dumplings. Two of my neighbors, Bonnie Hughes and Adrienne Durkee, suggested how to arrive at the rich biscuit crust which I had inquired about.

All these letters were jumbled up in my kitchen this week along with the rich biscuit dough and apples picked quick before the temperatures dropped to the low twenties. The combination put me in mind of roly-poly pudding.

Here is how it went. Grace Perkins’ mother used to prepare her apples for apple dumplings by paring and slicing them “as for pie.” She sweetened them with brown sugar seasoned with a shake of nutmeg. She rolled out her dough and cut it into squares and placing some of the apple slices in the center of a square of pie dough, wrapped “the opposite points of dough together,” pinching them shut to bake them. “Serve hot with hot foamy sauce,” wrote Grace.

Virginia wrote, “I know your apple dumplings must be good, but really, if you’re using pie crust, it’s just a funny-looking apple pie.” Her husband’s grandmother made apple dumplings with a biscuit crust and cooked them in a jelly roll-like pan. When Gramie Ethel died in 1982, she took her recipe with her, Virginia reported, but she rolled her rich biscuit crust quite thin whereupon “it acted almost like cloth.” Virginia said the closest she ever came to a rich biscuit dough was when she used half the baking powder called for in a biscuit recipe. Hmm, I thought.

I really wanted to make a rich biscuit dough, but I didn’t think we needed another apple dumpling go-round, but there were the apples, and I thought, “Roly-poly pudding!” Well, if Virginia Tozier thinks the apple dumplings were a funny-looking pie, wait till she sees this roly-poly pudding. I have found roly-poly pudding mentioned all over the place, even being made aboard coasting schooners in the late 1800s. They are in cookbooks, both printed sorts and manuscript. The rich biscuit dough would be perfect for it, I thought.

It used to be that a roly-poly pudding was wrapped up in a cloth and boiled like the dumplings used to be, but most of us prefer our dough baked, and after the mid-1800s or so, only the most old-fashioned cooks ever steamed them. Baked or steamed, it needs a sauce. The great thing about the pudding is that you can put practically anything into it. Apples, pears, peaches, mincemeat. Even jam works. Since it is no harder to make than a batch of biscuits, you can put together a nice little dessert in very little time. And Grace Perkins, bless her, sent a good recipe for Foamy Sauce to put on it.

So then I just had to figure out the rich biscuit dough. The suggestions included stuff like cream, lots of butter, and even cream cheese. But Virginia’s comment about baking powder reminded me that I had to include that. What follows is a collaborative effort. Jamie, my husband, liked it. He said it is as good as pie, even a funny-looking one.

Apple Roly-Poly Pudding

Serves 4-6

Filling:

2 cups of thinly sliced, cored and, if you wish, peeled, apples

1/4 cup of raisins

1/4 cup light brown sugar

Juice of half a lemon

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Toss all the ingredients together, and let stand while you prepare the dough.

Rich biscuit dough:

1 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons of cold butter

1/4 cup of cream

1/2 cup cold milk

Sift the flour and baking powder together. Cut in butter with a pastry blender (or pulse it in a food processor). Toss the flour and butter mixture together with the cream exactly as you would for biscuits, then continue tossing the mixture while you drizzle in the milk until the dough forms a mass.

Turn out on a floured board, and knead lightly for three or four times. Roll out into a rectangle until the dough is about a quarter of an inch thick and you have a crust about 12-14 inches long by 10-12 deep. Spread the apple filling mixture in the center. Roll the crust over the filling gently so as not to break the dough until all the filling is rolled up inside. Pinch the ends and the seam together, and lay on a greased pan. If you wish, make a decorative slash or two on the top. Bake for 30 minutes in a 350 F oven. Insert a knife to make sure the apples are done. Serve with Foamy Sauce or good old whipped cream.

Foamy Sauce

Makes about 11/2 cups

1/3 cup butter

1 cup of sugar

1 beaten egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

Put a saucepan with water in it on the stove to get hot, or use a double boiler. In the top of the double boiler or in another smaller, heavy bottomed saucepan, cream the butter. Beat in the sugar and the egg. Put the butter, sugar and egg mixture over hot water, and beat for about 7 minutes, until it is smooth and light. Add the vanilla when you take it off the heat. Serve right away.

Looking for …

A tourtiere recipe, of the sort made for Christmas Eve by our French Canadian neighbors. And a good recipe for a Florentine cookie, preferably one you have had success with yourself.

Send queries or answers to Sandy Oliver, 1061 Main Road, Islesboro 04848. E-mail tastebuds

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