The Chemistry of Cookery

yolks, its casein is made leathery instead of being dissolved, and the substitution of sixpenny worth of double cream for a halfpenny worth of milk supplies the high-class victim with fivepence halfpenny worth of biliary derangement. In Gouffé’s ‘Royal Cookery Book’ (the Household Edition of which contains a great deal that is really useful to an English housewife) I find a better recipe under the name of ‘_Cheese Soufflés_.’ He says: ‘Put two ounces and a quarter of flour in a stewpan, with one pint and a half of milk; season with salt and pepper; stew over the fire till boiling, and should there be any lumps, strain the _soufflé_ paste through a tammy cloth; add seven ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, and seven yolks of eggs; whip the whites till they are firm, and add them to the mixture; fill some paper cases with it, and bake in the oven for fifteen minutes.’ Cre-Fydd says: ‘Grate six ounces of rich cheese (Parmesan is the best); put it into an enamelled saucepan, with a teaspoonful of flour of mustard, a saltspoonful of white pepper, a grain of cayenne, the sixth part of a nutmeg, grated, two ounces of butter, two tablespoonfuls of baked flour, and a gill of new milk; stir it over a slow fire till it becomes like smooth, thick cream (but it must not boil); add the well-beaten yolks of six eggs, beat for ten minutes, then add the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth; put the mixture into a tin or a cardboard mould, and bake in a quick oven for twenty minutes. Serve immediately.’ Here is a true cookery of cheese by solution, and the result is an excellent dish. But there is some unnecessary complication and kitchen pedantry involved. The _soufflé_ part of the business is a mere puffing up of the mixture for the purpose of displaying the cleverness of the cook, being quite useless to the consumer, as it subsides before it can be eaten. It further involves practical mischief, as it cannot be obtained without toasting the surface