It is of great importance for vegetarians always to have on hand a fairly good stock of white and brown roux, as it is a great saving both of time and money. As roux will keep good for weeks, and even months, there is no fear of waste in making a quantity at a time. Take a pound of flour, with a spoonful or two over; see that it is thoroughly dry, and then sift it. Next take a pound of butter and squeeze it in a cloth so as as much as possible to extract all the moisture from it. Next take a stew-pan--an enamelled one is best-- and melt the butter till it runs to oil. It will now be found that, although the bulk of the butter looks like oil, a certain amount of froth will rise to the top. This must be carefully skimmed off. Continue to expose the butter to a gentle heat till the scum ceases to rise. Now pour off the oiled butter very gently into a basin till you come to some dregs. These should be thrown away, or, at any rate, not used in making the roux. Now mix the pound of dried and sifted flour with the oiled butter, which is what the French cooks call clarified butter. Place it back in the stew-pan, put the stew-pan over a tolerably good fire, but not too fierce, as there is a danger of its burning. With a wooden spoon keep stirring this mixture, and keep scraping the bottom of the stew-pan, first in one place and then in another, being specially careful of the edges, to prevent its burning. Gradually the mixture will begin to turn colour. As soon as this turn of colour is perceptible take out half and put it in a basin. This is the white roux, viz., flour cooked in butter but not discoloured beyond a very trifling amount. Keep the stew-pan on the fire, and go on stirring the remainder, which will get gradually darker and darker in colour. As soon as the colour is that of light chocolate remove the stew-pan from the fire altogether, but still continue scraping and stirring for a few minutes longer, as the enamel retains the heat to such an extent that it will sometimes burn after it has been removed from the fire. It is important not to have the mixture too dark, and it will be found by experience that it gets darker after the stew-pan has been removed from the fire. When we say light chocolate we refer to the colour of a cake of chocolate that has been broken. The inside is the colour, not the outside. It is advisable sometimes to have by you ready a large slice of onion, and if you think it is dark enough you can throw this in and immediately by this means slacken the heat. Pour the brown roux into a separate basin, and put them by for use. In the houses of most vegetarians more white roux will be used than brown, consequently more than half should be removed if this is the case when the roux first commences to turn colour. When the brown roux gets cold it has all the appearance of chocolate, and when you use it it is best to scrape off the quantity you require with a spoon, and not add it to soups or sauces in one lump.
Mix Allinson wholemeal flour, milk, 1 or 2 eggs together, and a little sugar and cinnamon, and it is ready for use. Stew ripe cherries, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, plums, damsons, or other ripe fruit in a jar, pour into a pie-dish; pour into the batter named above, bake, and this is a good substitute for a fruit pie. Prunes can be treated the same way, or the batter can be cooked in the saucepan, poured into a mould, allowed to go cold and set; then it forms wholemeal blancmange, and may be eaten with stewed fresh fruit. Rusks, cheesecakes, buns, biscuits, and other like articles as Madeira cake, pound cake, wedding cake, &c., can all be made of wholemeal flour.
5 eggs, 2 oz. of butter, 3 oz. of castor sugar, 2 large bars of chocolate, 6 oz. of the crumb of the bread, and vanilla essence to taste. Cream the butter, and stir into it gradually the yolks of the eggs, the sugar, and chocolate. Previously soak the bread in milk or water. Squeeze it dry, and add to it the other ingredients. Add vanilla and the whites of the eggs whipped to a stiff froth, and pour the mixture into a buttered pie-dish or cake tin. Bake 3/4 of an hour, and serve immediately. If the soufflé is baked in a cake tin, a serviette should be pinned round it before serving.
1 quart of milk, 6 oz. of Allinson chocolate, 4 eggs, 1 tablespoonful of Allinson corn flour, essence of vanilla, sugar to taste. Dissolve the chocolate in a few tablespoonfuls of water, stirring it over the fire until a thick, smooth paste; add the milk, vanilla, and sugar. When boiling thicken the milk with the cornflour; remove the mixture from the fire to cool slightly, beat the eggs well, stir them into the thickened chocolate very gradually, and stir the whole over the fire, taking care not to allow it to boil When well thickened let the cream cool; serve in custard glasses or poured over sponge cakes or macaroons.
2 lbs. Allinson wholemeal flour, 2 lbs. currants, 1/2 lb. sugar, 12 oz. butter, 2 oz. candied lemon peel, 1 pint buttermilk. Beat the butter to a cream, add the sugar, then the meal, fruit, and milk, mix thoroughly; butter a cake tin, pour in the mixture, and bake in a slow oven for 3 1/2 hours.
1/2 lb. of castor sugar, 1/2 lb. of wheatmeal, sifted fine, the grated rind of a lemon, 2 oz. of butter, and 2 well-beaten eggs. Rub the butter into the meal, and mix all the ingredients well together; roll the mixture out thin, lay it on a tin, and when baked cut into diamond squares.
A good lunch cake may be made by rubbing 6 oz. of butter into 1-1/4 lbs. of Allinson wholemeal flour, 6 oz. of sugar. Beat up the yolks of 4 eggs with a teacupful of milk, and work into the flour so as to make a stiff batter. Add 2 oz. of mixed peel cut small, and 1/2 lb. of mixed sultanas. Lastly, add the beaten white of the eggs, whisk well, and pour the mixture into a greased cake tin. Bake for 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
1 lb. of ground rice, 1/4 lb. of castor sugar, 6 eggs, 2 oz. of sweet and bitter ground almonds mixed. Mix the almonds with the ground rice, adding the sugar, and the eggs, well beaten; beat all together and bake the cake in a buttered mould, in a moderately hot oven.
9 stale sponge cakes, some raspberry jam, 2 pints of milk, 8 oz. of Allinson cornflour, sugar to taste, a few drops of almond essence. Halve the sponge cakes, spread them with jam, arrange them in a buttered mould, and soak them with 1/2 pint of the milk boiling hot. Boil the rest of the milk and thicken it with the cornflour as for blancmange; flavour with the essence and sugar; pour the mixture over the sponge cakes, and turn all out when cold.
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.
