My mum chucks it all in and whisks hard! It always works for her but I can't get it right like that!

I use a tablespoon of butter, melt it then add a tablespoon of plain flour. Cook that for a few mins, stirring then gradually add a pint of milk, just a little at a time to start with and make sure it's totally mixed in with the roux. Once it's all mixed in I add the cheese and then it thickens.

I've also read you should take it off the heat when adding the mil but I've never done it!!

Are you using a proper "whisk" rather than a spoon? I always manage to get rid of any lumps by giving it a good thrashing with a wire whisk.

Here are a couple of cheats...

Use créme fraîche, doesn't need thickening, doesn't spilt, just warm and stir in your grated cheese.

Or

Warm your milk, mix a couple of tsps of cornflour with some cold milk then add it to the warm milk and keep stirring until it bubbles. (Saves a couple of calories as you skip the butter.) Stir in your cheese.

Or

If your sauce is lumpy just use one of those had blenders, they blitz away the lumps and leave you with a lovely smooth sauce in seconds!

J.

I melt the butter, add the flour and whisk, slowly adding the milk, keep whisking and you should get a lump free roux !

Haven't readt he whole thread so I don't know if this has already been mentioned.....

I am the world's worst white sauce maker. But on Sunday I made a PERFECT lump-free white sauce in the microwave. I was gobsmacked! lol

Looked in one of my mum's old microwave cookbooks and found out how. I put a knob of butter, a bit of flour (about 2 tsp) and about a quarter pint of milk into a micro bowl. Brief stir - yep all lumpy and nasty but the book said it would be.

Keeping a close eye on it, I nuked it for 30 secs, stirred, then another 30, stir, then another 30.... Each time I saw it rise up as it boiled, I stopped it and gave it a stir. Amazingly it worked perfectly. Voila - perfect glossy white sauce of the right consistency in less than 2 mins.

Meant I could also keep my eye on the other sunday roast stuff at the same time. (Mum loves leeks in white sauce, hence my experiment into foolproof white sauce making, which usually takes a saucepan, lots of attention & stirring, and usually ends up lumpy and/or burnt at the bottom).