Fruit Rolly Polly

Fruit Rolly Polly is a fruit filled shortcake which should be accompanied by vanilla custard or fruit sauce. I followed the basic recipe from the book "Rannar Boi" by Leela Majumdar .

Ingredients:

• Flour-2 cups
• White Butter-1 stick (100gm)
• Baking powder-2tsp
• Powdered sugar- 1/3 cup
• salt- 1/2 tsp
  
• water-/2 cup
• Soft fruits, like banana, grapes, orange
• Nutmeg/cinnamon powder (optional)
  

Procedure:

• Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt with 3/4 th of the butter. Add the water little by little to make a soft dough, but don't knead it. The dough will be somewhat sticky , not hard like roti dough.
  
• Prepare the fruits - slice the bananas, cut the grapes in small pieces, peel and de-seed the oranges. You can use only one fruit or a combination of fruits. You can also use grated apples or pears.
  
• Grease a baking dish, and make a base using about half the dough. Now arrange the fruits on top of the base, and cover the fruits again with the rest of the dough. This is a bit difficult process, as the dough will be a bit sticky. The original recipe asked to make a roll shape with the fruits in the middle, but after two trials, I found arranging the layers to be comparatively easier.
• Sprinkle cinnamon/nutmeg powder if desired.
• Bake for 30 minutes at 150degree C in a preheated oven. Insert a knife to check if the inside is done.
• If you want the top to be brownish, leave the Rolly Polly in grill mode for about 5 minutes.

This Fruit Rolly Polly can be eaten all by itself also. But as the shortcake base is not very sweet (with 1/3 cup sugar in 2 cups flour ), not everybody will like eating it all by itself. It is best to have it soaked in vanilla custard.

Another good point about this recipe is that it does not use egg and/or milk. So, people who have aversion towards these ingredients can have Fruit Rolly Polly safely.