In 1892 James Henry Mitchell, a Florida engineer and inventor, received a patent for a machine that could produce a hollow tube of cookie dough and simultaneously fill it with jam. At the same time, Philadelphia baker and fig lover Charles Roser was developing a recipe for a pastry based on the homemade fig roll likely brought to the US by immigrants from Britain. Roser approached the Cambridgeport, Massachusetts based Kennedy Biscuit Company, who agreed to take on production and sales.