Marmalade Roll...Third Time Lucky.

If I were a real proper food blogger, like all those good ones that write actual books and Tweet all day and the likes, I would test all the recipes I show you again and again and then I would write it and get someone else to test it to make sure I wasn't talking a lot of twaddle.

I don't really doooooooo that. I think of this as more of a window looking in on to the journeys I undertake in my little kitchen and things tend, on the whole, to work out well and then I tell you about it, and if I think I could make them work out even better, I tell you how I think YOU should do things instead of how I actually did them.

This time I did though, oooow this time...three whole times. First try = diAAAAAASTer daaaaarling...didn't even bother getting it in the oven. And I'm not about to give you a recipe that makes me sad. Second try = perfectly edible, nice and tasty in fact but definitely not a looker and a recipe not worthy of repeating. Third try = pheeeeeew, made it. I learned my lessons and I can tell you about them....this is surely the main appeal of bloggys; the whole 'I make mistakes so you don't have to' thing, in a real life kitchen with real life, non-professional mistakes. Plus my genius prose of course.

So, lessons. You deffo need suet here, butter will not do. If you are making your own marmalade, DO NOT use it to make the roll on the same day, it will be TOO HOT. And don't be a div and make the wrong (actually really easy) calculations. Hope that helps. With Love and Cake.

Marmalade Roll.

Recipe from the wonderful Jane Brocket's book; Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer.

A few notes:

• DO NOT use hot marmalade fresh out of the pan and DO NOT substitute butter for the suet. I have made the mistakes so you don't have to.
• You could, of course, replace the marmalade with you fav jam or conserve or compote or nut spread or whatever you fancy really.

Serves 6

You will need

1 baking sheet, lined

250g self raising flour

pinch salt

125g shredded suit (beef or vegetarian)

50g light brown sugar

1 jar or your favourite marmalade

milk, for brushing

1 tbsp demerara

• Preheat your oven to 200°c.
• In a nice big bowl combine the flour, salt, suet and sugar.
• Add 100ml of water and start to bring everything together with your hands. Add more water if you need to, I used around 200ml in all; you're looking for a fairly stiff dough with no stickiness.
• Gather the dough into a tight ball and turn out onto a clean, floured surface.
• Roll it out into a rectangle, about 30 x 15 cm with a depth of 1cm.
• Spread your lovely marmalade over the dough, leaving a border of 1cm.
• Brush water over the border.
• Roll up the dough from one long side to the other; don't worry about a bit of leakage.
• Transfer the roll to your baking sheet and tuck the ends under to create as much as a seal as poss.
• Brush all over with milk and sprinkle with demerara sugar.
• Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until golden and firm. Don't worry about it splitting a bit or leaking, it's hooomely. Do, however, try and carefully remove the roll from the baking sheet before too long, you don't want any leaked marmalade to cool and stick the paper to the roll.
• Serve hot, in slices, with custard or double or clotted cream.