The following receipts will be found successful, probably after a trial or two, in producing excellent, light, friable, and most palatable bread in the form recommended. The first directs the mode of making it with baking powder. - Take two pounds of the well- ground wheat meal described, and add half a pound of fine flour, or, better still, the same weight, or more if preferred, of fine Scotch oatmeal. Mix thoroughly with a sufficient quantity of baking powder and a little salt; then rub in two ounces of butter and make into dough - using a wooden spoon - with cold skimmed milk or milk and water, soft in consistence, so that it can almost be poured into the tin ring, which gives it form when baked. In this manner it is to be quickly made into flat cakes (like tea-cakes), and baked on a tin, the rings used being about an inch high and seven or eight inches in diameter, each enclosing a cake. Put them without delay into a quick oven at the outset, so that the external surface may be instantly hardened or sealed to prevent the gas formed by the baking powder from escaping, otherwise the result will be a dense, thin, and heavy cake instead of a light and spongy one. This is a cardinal point in the process which is often overlooked. When the object is accomplished, which will occupy some five or seven minutes, the temperature should be lowered to complete the process gently and completely.*

Value of inert matters in food.

Best form for baking.

* The following is a simple and excellent formula for " baking powder;" one which has been long used for this and other purposes. It may be obtained at any chemist's and in any quantity, based on the following proportions: Tartaric acid, 2 ozs.

Receipt for whole-meal cakes, using baking- powder.

Receipt for making It.

If made with yeast, which is for general purposes preferable, when either good German or the fresh home product can be obtained, add the necessary quantity to the dough, made as above directed with the two meals, butter, salt, and warm milk and water; make the cakes and put them on the tin with their rings, and set near the fire to rise, which they will do in an hour or little under. Then bake in a medium oven in the same way as for any other fermented bread. When yeast is used and not baking powder, a medium coarse oatmeal may be added to the wheat meal instead of fine oatmeal, which is necessary in the foregoing receipt.

The butter and milk supply fatty matter 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, combined with a desirable proportion of inert matter. 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 at Paris and Vienna, is unrivalled for delicacy, texture, and colour.

Bicarbonate of soda, 3 ozs.

Common arrowroot, 3 ozs. Mix well; place in a wide-mouthed corked bottle, and keep perfectly dry.

With yeast.

Whole wheat meal may now be bought in most towns, but by no means always in such perfect condition as it ought to be. When it cannot be obtained, a useful corn mill, the cutting part to be made of steel, is now constructed cheaply for home use; the best white wheat should be procured, and the grain can be ground so as to supply a meal of any degree of coarseness desired.*

An important object in furnishing the foregoing details is to illustrate how combinations of the nitrogenous, starchy, fatty, and mineral elements may be made, in well-proportioned mixtures, in order to produce what I have termed a "complete" dish - that is, one which supplies every demand of the body, without containing any one element in undue proportion. For it is obvious that one or two of these elements may exist in injurious excess, especially for delicate stomachs, the varied peculiarities of which, as before insisted on, must sometimes render necessary a modification of all rules. Thus it is easy to make the fatty constituent too large, and thereby derange digestion, a result frequently experienced by persons of sedentary habits, to whom a little pastry, a morsel of foie gras, or a rich cream is a source of great discomfort, or of a "bilious attack;" while the outdoor labourer, who requires much fatty material for his work, would have no difficulty in consuming a large quantity of such compounds with advantage.

* Kent & Co., the well-known makers of domestic appliances, in High Holborn, supply such mills.

Domestic mills for grinding wheat.

The combination of elements necessary for a "complete " food.

Result of undue proportion of one element.

"Complete" Food or Dish.

Cheese as a supplement to bread is largely used by the labouring man, especially in agricultural districts. It is a food well adapted to his wants; while his digestion, unlike that of many a factory operative who works under cover, generally deals with it easily. Cheese is one of the most concentrated forms of nitrogenous food, and admirably supports hard labour in the open air. Thus it is that Swiss guides and mountaineers always demand a good supply of cheese and butter among the provisions when a long day's work is planned. When taken at the end of a full meal as a savoury morsel, the flavour only is required, and the quantity should be small. Many persons whose daily life affords little opportunity for muscular activity find cheese, at all events when uncooked, not easily digestible. And when such do employ it as an article of food, it should be regarded as taking the place of meat, which is not so rich in nitrogen. Mr. Mattieu Williams has some good remarks on this subject,* from which it appears that when properly cooked, cheese is probably more easily assimilated by an ordinary stomach, than when eaten in the raw condition. The well-known "cheese fondu" is an example. Here is the Swiss peasant's form as he gives it, and of the dish thus produced he speaks highly, from observation as well as from personal experience, in relation to its sustaining power, and its right to form the staple dish of a substantial meal, appropriately adding, "It is rather too good - over- nutritious - for a man only doing sedentary work."

* "The Chemistry of Food," by Mattieu Williams, pp. 135 - 40. London : Chatto & Windus. 1885.

Cheese valuable diet for labourer.

Use of it by Swiss mountaineers.

Improved by cooking.

Mix grated cheese and eggs beaten as for an omelette, adding a little new milk or butter. Place the mixture in a saucer - shaped pan which bears the fire, over which it is to be gently cooked, stirring well until the whole is dissolved, and the mixture is homogeneous; serve it in the pan, and eat it with a good supply of bread, and with salt and mustard to taste. Mr. Williams further suggests that a small quantity of bicarbonate of potash may be added with advantage to the ingredients before cooking - say 15 or 20 grains for a dish sufficing for two persons. It appears to facilitate solution of the casein, and at all events cannot be an unwholesome addition. Indeed, as he observes, it supplies potash salts, which are naturally present in meat, but which are wanting in cheese. By adding bread crumbs, or slices of bread, and more milk, an excellent savoury pudding may be made, and baked in a pie-dish, or in a shallower one if preferred. This preparation may be easily rendered an elegant one for other tables if required.

The peasant's "cheese fondu." Mattieu Williams' suggestion.