The Apsley cookery book

is as great as the difference between baked and raw pastry ! This illustration may be exaggerated, but the difference is undoubtedly very great ; and as every help is required to make the soups palatable, cooks will do well always to keep on hand a stock of white and brown roux. Some housekeepers may think its preparation extravagant, but if the dabs of butter and the flour thickenings — many of them half wasted — which are generally used to thicken soups and sauces, were all added up, the extravagance would certainly be on the side of the latter methods. When soups, sauces, or gravies require to be browner than the brown roux, or fried onion makes them, a little Parisian Essence is the best browning to use for this purpose. It is simply burnt sugar sold at all grocers by that name, and will be found much more convenient and economical than any home-made preparation. There is another important thing in connection with soups that the cook should always bear in mind, and that is the seasoning. Soup, while it should always be tasty, should never be highly seasoned. Ground pepper should never be used, as mistakes are very liable to occur, and the soup made too hot. If peppercorns — black or white according to the colour of the soup — are used, the agreeable flavour of the pepper is given, without any fear of the soup being spoiled by being too hot. Ground pepper has another disagreeable property when used in soups ; it sinks to the bottom, and the last person served often gets more than his share. A cook must remember that there is a wide difference between the seasoning of sauces and soups. A sauce or gravy must always be well seasoned, as it is intended as a relish, and unless it is distinctive, it does not serve its purpose ; but the same seasoning in a soup, which is taken in larger quantities, would be quite out of place, and very disagreeable. Perhaps the most important item in this diet is the bread, and no pains should be spared to have it of the best, and of various kinds. Baker's bread, when it is good, is very useful for toast and bread-crumbs ; but bread to eat with other foods is best when home-made. The American bread-maker, mentioned in the recipe for bread, is a most valuable invention. It is called “ The Three Minutes Bread-Maker,” and can be obtained from the Stores or any good ironmonger; it really kneads the bread perfectly in that time. If the instructions given in recipe No. 385 are carefully followed, the result will be really good and appetising bread, which keeps good for a week. Many experiments were made before the amount of yeast, &c., wras decided upon ; and in the recipe the least possible quantity, consistent with light bread, is given. Bread keeps better if made in tins ; but if it is to be eaten within three days after making, it may be made into round loaves and baked on the oven shelves. All pieces of bread, and crusts cut from toast, provided that these are not burnt, should be saved, and every two or three days they should be put in a tin in the oven — which must not be too hot — and baked until they are a light brown all through. They should then be crushed with a rolling-pin on a pastry-board until they are quite fine, and put away in a biscuit or other covered tin, which should be kept for that purpose. Another preparation of dried bread-crumbs, called