JAM ROLY-Poly is the pudding that time forgot.

When did you last bake a suet pudding? Despite the recent revival of interest in traditional British home-baking, this iconic pud has not really caught on.

There are those like Mrs Beeton, who I always turn to for guidance and sound advice, who would argue that this is a truly a seasonal pudding because eight makes good use of summer fruit jam.

Being hot, filling and sweet it is just the perfect comfort food for those called, wet evenings that lie ahead of us.

Jam roly-poly has fond childhood memories for me and I'm sure you too, being often on the school dinner table after being trashed by school cooks.

No doubt you recall slabs of heavy greasy pastry with not enough jam, accompanied with a big metal jug of luke-warm custard with half an inch of skin on top.

Who wanted to eat a pudding that carried a health warning?

Yes, I know jam roly-poly can never be called 'light' but at least you can be generous with the jam and serve it with a mass of good quality custard.

No one is suggesting you eat it every day, but if it is well made I am sure it will be back on the menu this wintertime without a stodgy joke.

The fluffy pastry and jam concoction was known delightfully as Dead-Man's Arm in the early nineteen century because it was often steamed and served up in an old shirt-sleeve.

This classic pudding was then a regular on our nation’s dinner tables up onto the 60s and then disappeared.

The techniques would involve using cotton cloths, kitchen string and large steamers with the key ingredient beef suet which today is hardly a regular on our shopping lists.

The modern approach is for a lighter and less calorific jam roly-poly than the Victorian version by using a ready-shredded suet like Atora.

This has been sold since 1893 when originally only beef suet was available. The company now offers a 'lighter' vegetable suet, which is ideal for everyone to use.

The traditional method of steaming is out of favour, and modern recipes prefer baking to a nice crisp top. This is light and fluffy unlike the heavy, soggy, stodge puddings, I was brought up on.

This British classic pudding will neither be dull or bad for us – what we have here is a great tradition for innovatory cuisine which is admired by the rest of the world.

So please dust off your rolling pin and apron this weekend and serve up this forgotten blast-from-the-past pudding again! • Lifelong baking fanatic Mike Armstrong, the master baker at Keighley’s Sainsbury’s supermarket, gives hugely-popular demonstrations of his baking skills to local community groups and schools.

He has been writing his Friend in Knead column for the Keighley News for the past couple of years.

If you’ve missed any of his previous articles, simply visit keighleynews.co.uk, click on What’s On then Food & Drink.