(1) 1 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 6 oz. of butter, a little cold water. Rub the butter into the meal, add enough water to the paste to keep it together, mixing it with a knife, roll out and use. (2) 1/2 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 1/2 lb. of mashed potatoes, 3 oz. of butter, 1 tablespoonful of oil, a little cold milk (about 1 cupful). Mix the meal and mashed potatoes, rub in the butter and the oil, add enough milk to moisten the paste, mixing with a knife only, and roll out as required. (3) 1/2 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 4 eggs, 2 oz. of butter, some milk. Rub the butter into the meal, beat the eggs well, mix them with the meal, adding enough cold milk to make a firm paste, roll out and use. (4) 1/2 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 1/2 lb. of fine breadcrumbs, 2 eggs, 2 oz. of butter, and a little cold milk. Mix the ingredients as in (3), moisten the paste with milk, and roll it out. (5) (Puff crust). 1 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 1 lb. of butter, a little cold water. Rub 1/2 lb. of butter into the meal, add enough cold water to make a stiff paste, roll it out, spread the paste with some of the other butter, and roll the paste up; roll it out again, spread with more butter, roll up again and repeat about 3 times, until all the butter is used up. Use for pie-crust, &c., and bake in a quick oven. (6) 1/2 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 3 oz. of sago, 1 oz. of butter. Let the sago swell out over the fire with milk and water, mix it with the meal and butter, and roll the paste out and use. (7) 1 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 1 gill of cold milk, 5 oz. vege-butter. Rub the butter well into the meal, moisten with the milk (taking a little more than 1 gill if necessary), in the usual way. Roll out and use according to requirements.
1-1/2 pints of milk, 5 eggs, vanilla essence, 4 oz. of castor sugar for the caramel, and a little more sugar to sweeten the custard. Heat the milk, whip up the eggs, and carefully stir the hot milk into the beaten eggs; flavour with vanilla and sugar to taste. Meanwhile put the castor sugar into a small enamelled saucepan and stir it over a quick fire until it is quite melted and brown. Add about 2 tablespoonfuls of hot water to the caramel, stir thoroughly, and pour it into a tin mould or a cake tin. Let the caramel run all round the sides of the tin; pour in the custard, and bake it in a moderate oven, standing in a larger tin of boiling water, until the custard is set. Let it get cold, turn out, and serve. This is a very dainty sweet dish.
1/2 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 1/2 lb. of medium oatmeal, 6 oz. of butter or vege-butter, 1 cupful of cold water. Rub the butter into the flour, add the water, and mix all into a paste with a knife. Roll the paste out thin on a floured board, cut pieces out with a tumbler or biscuit cutter. Line with them small patty pans, and fill them with mincemeat; cover with paste, moisten the edges and press them together, and bake the mince pies in a quick oven; they will be done in 15 to 20 minutes.
To make a small cheese souffle in a round cake- tin, proceed as follows:--Make the tin very hot in the oven. Put in about an ounce of butter, so as to make the tin oily in every part inside. The tin must be tilted so that the butter pours round the sides of the tin as well as the bottom. Take two eggs, separate the yolks from the whites, and beat the whites to a stiff froth; beat up the two yolks very thoroughly with a quarter of a pint of milk. Add to this two tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese; add this mixture to the beaten-up whites, and mix the whole carefully together. Now pour this mixture into the hot buttered tin, which should be five or six inches deep, and bake it in the oven. The mixture will rise to five or six times its original depth. As soon as it is done, run with the souffle from the oven door to the dining-room door. However quick you may be, the souffle will probably sink an inch on the way. Some cooks wrap hot flannel on the outside of the tin to keep up the heat. If you have a folded dinner napkin round the tin for appearance sake, as is usually the case, fold the napkin before you make the souffle, and make the napkin sufficiently big round that it can be dropped over the tin in an instant. The napkin should be pinned, and be quite half an inch in diameter bigger than the width of the tin. This is to save time. Delay in serving the souffle is fatal.
3/4 of lb. of Allinson wholemeal flour, 2 oz. salt butter, 1 egg, 1-1/2 gills of milk, 1/4 an ounce of German yeast. Warm the milk and butter in a pan together, rub the yeast smooth with 1/2 a teaspoonful of sugar, add the milk and butter. Stir this mixture gradually into the flour, add the egg slightly beaten, mix till quite smooth. Divide into two, put into well-greased tins, set these in a warm place for 1 hour to rise. Put into a quick oven, and bake about 15 minutes.
To 1 lb. of golden syrup add 1 breakfastcupful of Allinson breadcrumbs, the grated rind and juice of 1 lemon. Mix well together. Line the tins with short paste. Put about 1 tablespoonful of the mixture in each tin; bake in a quick oven.
1 lb. of fine wholemeal flour, 6 oz. of desiccated cocoanut, 3 oz. of butter, 3 eggs, a little cold milk, 6 oz. castor sugar. Rub the butter into the meal, add the sugar, cocoanut, and the well-beaten eggs. Mix, and add only just enough milk to make the mixture keep together. Put small lumps on a floured baking tin, and bake in a quick oven.
Home-made bread is not so much used now as it was years back. Most housekeepers have found by experience that it is a waste both of time and money. There are very few houses among the middle classes which possess an oven capable of competing with any chance of success with a baker's oven. There are, however, many vegetarians who believe in what is called whole-meal bread. A good deal of the whole-meal bread sold as such has been found to be adulterated with substances very unwholesome to ordinary stomachs. We may mention saw-dust as one of the ingredients used for the purpose. Again, if you attempt to make whole-meal bread into loaves, you will find great difficulty in baking the loaves. This whole-meal is a very slow conductor of heat, and the result will probably be that the outside of the loaf will be very hard while the inside will be too underdone to be eaten. Consequently, should you wish to have home-made whole-meal bread, it is far best to bake it in the form of a tea-cake or flat-cake. We cannot do better, in conclusion, than quote what Sir Henry Thompson says on this subject:--"The following recipe," he says, "will be found successful, probably, after a trial or two, in producing excellent, light, friable, and most palatable bread: To two pounds of coarsely ground or crushed whole-meal, add half a pound of fine flour and a sufficient quantity of baking powder and salt; when these are well mixed, rub in two ounces of butter, and make into dough with half milk and water, or with all milk if preferred. Make rapidly into flat cakes like 'tea-cakes,' and bake without delay in a quick oven, leaving them afterwards to finish thoroughly at a lower temperature. The butter and milk supply fatty matters, in which the wheat is somewhat deficient; all the saline and mineral matters of the husk are retained; and thus a more nutritive form of bread cannot be made. Moreover, it retains the natural flavour of the wheat, in place of the insipidity which is characteristic of fine flour, although it is indisputable that bread produced from the latter, especially in Paris and Vienna, is unrivalled for delicacy, texture, and colour. Whole meal may be bought; but mills are now cheaply made for home use, and wheat may be ground to any degree of coarseness desired."
4 eggs, 3 oz. of Gruyère cheese, 1 oz. of butter, 1 teaspoonful of finely chopped parsley, pepper and salt to taste. Spread the butter on a flat baking dish; lay on it some very thin slices of the cheese. On these break the eggs, keeping the yolks whole; grate the rest of the cheese, mix it with the parsley; strew this over the eggs, and bake them in a quick oven for 5 to 7 minutes.
6 good-sized apples, 1 oz. of butter, 3 eggs, the juice and rind of 1 lemon, 1 teacupful of milk, sugar to taste, and some paste for crust. Steam or bake the apples till tender and press them through a sieve while hot, add the butter, and let the mixture cool; beat the yolks of the eggs, add to them the milk, sugar, lemon juice and rind, and add all these to the apples and butter; line a dish with paste, fill it with the above mixture, and bake the pie for 1/2 hour in a quick oven; whip the whites of the eggs stiff, adding a little castor sugar, heap the froth over the pie, and let it set in the oven.
