So, I’m a little late to link up to the Great Bloggers Bake Off run by the Crazy Kitchen and Mummy Mishaps this week, alas, it has been a very busy week! Most of my evenings last week were taken up by doing some preparation for my last day at work goodies, and having a Dexter get together for the final episode – what a disappointment.

Friday night involved going out for food and drinks with my lovely co-workers, then a night in with one of my besties. But Sunday…. well, was time for another costume photo shoot for my friend’s fancy dress shop in preparation for Halloween…

Rawr! I am obviously a super scary Victorian Vampire, and my friend Rachael is a Roman maiden with tasty blood. We don’t pretend that the timeline makes sense 😉

Now I no longer have to go and do any pesky work for a living, I have much more time on my hands. It will mostly be spent sorting and tidying and cleaning, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get using up the random contents of my cupboards too!

Today’s post is sponsored by the half used packet of vegetable suet that has been in my cupboard for far too long, and comes accompanied by tinned pears in lemon jelly. You are welcome.

Coconut and Cardamom Roly Poly Recipe

Ingredients

Coconut filling

70g desiccated coconut

125ml coconut cream

60g sugar

Suet pastry

175g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting

pinch salt

100g shredded suet

75g ground almonds

1tsp ground cardamom

100g milk, plus extra for brushing

2 free-range egg yolks, plus 1 free-range egg, beaten, to glaze

50g honey

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/fan oven 160C/350F/Gas 4. Line a tray with a non-stick liner or baking paper.

Place the ingredients for the filling in a small bowl and mix together until thoroughly combined and set aside.

Place the flour, salt, suet, ground almonds and ground cardamom in a large bowl and stir together until well combined. Measure the milk into a jug and beat in the egg yolks, and honey. Slowly add the wet mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix to a soft, but not sticky dough. Tip the dough out onto a floured surface and roll out to a 20 x 30cm/8 x12in rectangle.

Spread the filling onto the dough, leaving a 1cm/½in border all the way round. Gently roll the dough up from the short end, brushing with milk and transfer to the prepared baking tray, seam-side down. Brush with a little beaten egg.

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until golden-brown, covering with a sheet of foil should the top and sides appear to be browning too much.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly, then serve!

Yum! Is it wrong that this was my lunch? Followed by some jelly. I am using up the cupboards after all. It tastes like a dessert version of a Peshwari  naan. I had some coconut stuff leftover, so added some cocoa powder to make it into a stiff dough, which I formed into a log, chilled, then sliced up into coconutty, chocolatey truffle-like slices. Yum. I’ll make those again for sure!