Most Karoo farmers’ wives probably bake a Roly-Poly pudding from memory. It’s no different with Carine van Kerken of DikkopVlakte Gasteplaas between Grahamstown and Bedford. She doesn’t have a specific recipe on paper but this one comes pretty close.
INGREDIENTS
2 cups flour (500 ml)
3 teaspoons baking powder (15 ml)
1 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 cup butter (125 g)
2 eggs, beaten
milk, a few tablespoons as per the instructions below
teaspoon vanilla
apricot jam
SAUCE
1 1⁄2 cups boiling water (375 ml)
1 cup sugar (250 ml)
2 tablespoons butter (30 ml)
1 teaspoon vanilla
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 deg F/180 deg Celsius.
Grease a suitable oven dish, like a rectangular Pyrex dish.
Mix the flour, baking powder and salt, and rub in the butter.
Add the beaten eggs, and then just enough milk, tablespoon by tablespoon, to make a fairly firm dough.
Roll the dough out quite thinly — on a surface sprinkled with flour — and form a rectangle, by cutting off bits and adding it on again.
Spread the dough with apricot jam.
From one of the LONG sides, roll it up like a swiss roll.
Cut this roll into 1-inch slices, using a serrated knife such as a bread knife. The jam WILL ooze out.
Pack the slices, cut sides up, closely together, in the greased dish. Scoop the jam which oozed out on the surface you used, and just plonk back onto these rolls.
In a pot, mix the boiling water (from your kettle), sugar, butter, and vanilla and stir until the sugar dissolves.
With a tablespoon, ladle evenly over the slices of pudding, but beware: you will have more sauce than the baking dish can take. Usually, you’ll be left with about 3/4 cup. KEEP IT.
Bake for about 40 – 45 minutes.
When the sizzling pudding comes out of the oven, carefully pour the extra sauce over the center slices: I find that, when baking, the sauce tends to pool on the sides.
Now the hot pudding will absorb much of the leftover sauce in seconds. Use as much or as little as you like.
Serve hot, with custard, ice cream or whipped cream.
This pudding will definitely have you come back for seconds and perhaps even thirds if there are any leftovers at that stage.
