My daughter and I have been competing with the local birds for the wild blackberries.  We are having some victory, but I can attest there are still plenty of wild berries for the birds as I simply will not venture beyond the edge of the thickets where the canes grow.  I’m not into snakes.  I will put up with a few thorns, but please, no snakes.

I used our early berry-picking efforts to make this blackberry roll recipe.  The author writes:

     The memory of this blackberry roll goes back a long time to the days when the kids were sent out early in the morning to pick blackberries.  If we returned with lots of berries, there was likely to be blackberry roll for dinner.

     Grandma baked two or three of these juicy rolls in the big black bread pan.  Before she put the roll in to bake, she made what she called a ‘rolling fire’ – you get a rolling fire by filling the fire box with small sticks of wood and opening the damper up wide.  The flames literally rolled up the chimney making the stove mighty hot, not to mention what it did to the kitchen.

     This is the recipe.  The bright reddish purple juice oozes out in the pan as the roll bakes.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sifted flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 4 tablespoons soft butter
• 1 pint blackberries sweetened with 2/3 to 3/4 cup sugar

Directions:

1. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together.  Cut in butter with pastry blender.  Beat egg with milk.  Add and mix lightly.  Turn out on a lightly floured board and knead just enough to make the dough cling together.
2. On a lightly floured piece of wax or parchment paper, roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch.  Spread 4 tablespoons soft butter on the dough.  Cover with the sweetened blackberries.
3. Carefully roll up the dough like a jelly roll.  Using the wax/parchment paper to help, transfer the whole roll to a greased baking pan.
4. Bake at 400 degrees F for about 25 minutes or until brown.  Cut into slices and serve plain or with sauce.  Makes 6 to 8 servings.

To make Berry Sauce:

• Mix 1 cup blackberries with 3/4 cup sugar and juice of half a lemon.  Cook over low heat, stirring to prevent burning, until thickened.

Source & Inspiration:

Elizabeth Hedgecock Sparks.  North Carolina and Old Salem Cookery. (Durham, NC:  The Seeman Printery, Inc., 1955), 155-156.