The spirit of cookery

t a little more showy. Honey Cake, German Lecherkuchen, Lehkuchen, syu. Leckerle of the Swiss {lecker means tasty, toothsome), a cake of flour and honey, mostly somewhat fermented, flavoured with various ingredients, is probably the oldest known cake in the world, being described in the works of the Roman rustic writers. It should be preserved in its purity and perfection, and eaten annually by all lovers of the history of evolution of human culture, and of human culture itself. Strange to relate, in some cookery-books both of England and Germany, neither honey nor honey cake are as much as mentioned, and typical cakes, such as nougat, are so far denaturalized, degenerated, vulgarized, as to be directed to be made with sugar instead of honey. Some even prescribe Cane-sugar syrup, i.c., treacle, and warn the reader not to use beetroot treacle. All these cakes might have their opportunity and place, but they should be carefully distinguished from the genuine historical honey cakes. Besides the 'plain honey cake and the variations just indicated, there are celebrated the Basle honey cakes and cakelets, the white Nuremberg and variations, and Berlin pavement. Various small eakes, passing under the name of biscuits, are derived from some of the greater cakes above described, and are mostly somewhat compound with little specificity. This is also indicated by their names, which are derived either from a locality or an ingredient. They occur under such names as : Italian biscuits (Savoy cakelets with chopped almonds on the top), Genoese biscuits (mere genoises sandwiched with preserve), biscuits "(oval cakes of Savoy material, shaped like half-peaches and filled with peach jam), ap>ricot biscuits (analogous to the previous ones), Sicilian biscuits, brown bread biscuits, ginger-cake biscuits, caraway biscuits, orange-flavoured, biscuits. Some cakelets, described in English works as Albert biscuits and Victoria biscuits, are really darioles. The aniseed-flavoured biscuits, a form of German Christmas cakes, are much in favour in South Germany ; they are generally flat squares, or cut shapes, with some design in relief impressed upon them. The relief designs may be fanciful, historical, or have reference to contemporary events. Probably no previous heroes were ever shaped in dough, baked and eaten, so frequently as the Emperor William and his warriors and statesmen. A cake resembling a pudding, or pâté, is rice cake, MILLE FEUILLES, iMACROONS, BRENTEN 413 encrusted with almonds ; it also resembles a souffle, because the paste is first boiled and then baked ; of this there are variations, one being baked in a case of paste, timbale oj rice, others resulting from substitution. Many-flaked cakes, Gâteaux de Mille Feuilles, are an ancient highly-complicated luxury. Careme* says of it that ‘ cette grosse piece appartient encore a nos anciens.’ The mille is only a large round number to represent many, for the flakes, or feuilles, actually rise to several thousands in a cake. If, say, a pound of puff paste receives ten turns as prescribed, that yields 512 layers of flakes ; if, as in the simple mille fcuillcs cake, five such strata of 512 layers each are superposed, we have 2,560 flakes, and if, as in the compound millc feuilles cake, ten such layers are superposed, we get 5,120 flakes.