The confectioner's and pastry-cook's guide, or, Confectionery made easy ...

Are made the same as Peppermint Drops excepting that you must not put any lemon-juice into the water; and instead of mixing oil of peppermint, mix in about G eight or ten drops of the essence of ginger. Colour them a light yellow. LEMON DROPS. Put a pound of sifted loaf sugar into a basin: mix lemon juice into it till it is a thick paste, and a little yellow colour, (see Colourings for Confectionary) ; put it into a drop-pan, and then make it hot over a clear fire, stirring it all the while; it must not boil; take it off the fire again for a minute. Drop and dry them the same as the best Peppermint Drops. BARBERRY DROPS. Mix the juice of ripe barberries, (which you must get by pounding them in a mortar, and straining off the juice through a piece of cloth,) with powdered and sifted loaf sugar, till it is of a consistence thick enough to prevent your spoon from falling when put in upright: make it hot on the fire in a drop-pan, stirring it all the time, it must not boil; then take it from the fire for a minute, add a little more sugar, and just warm it again; drop it out, and dry them, as directed for the Best Peppermint Drops. PEPPERMINT DROPS, ANOTHER WAY. Mix a pound of powdered and sifted loaf sugar with the whites of three or four eggs; add ten or twelve drops of the oil of peppermint, beat them up well, and drop them out on writing paper, with a small pipe and bag attached to it, the same as for Savoy biscuits. nelson’s buttons, Are a large sort of peppermint drops, and coloured on the top. Make as the last, and drop them on paper. MERINGUES. Take eight whites of eggs, and whisk them up to a very strong froth ; then stir in half a pound of fine sifted loaf sugar, as lightly as possible. Flavor them with any essence you please. Lay them off on white paper the shape of half an egg: sift fine powdered loaf sugar on them, and blow off all that does not stick. Bake them on a board, in a very slow oven; when of a pale brown, they are done. Take them off the paper, and beat in the under or soft part with a spoon, to form a hollow and dry them; fill them with cream or any preserved fruit, and stick two together, which will form an egg. COMFITS. Get a comfit-pan of any convenient size; have a cross-bar with a hook and swivel in the centre, and two chains with hooks at the end to fasten the pan, fix one of these chains at each end of your cross-bar; let the whole be suspended from the ceiling by the hook in the centre of your cross-bar, at a convenient height to be worked with ease over a charcoal fire, or hot stove, so as to keep the pan warm, but not too hot. Prepare some mucilage of gum arabic: and clarify loaf sugar; boil it to the degree of a thread or smooth ; keep the latter warm by the side of your stove or fire. Have ready some carraway seeds, almonds, &c. sifted free from all dust, put some in your comfit-pan, and give them a coating of gum arabic and flour or fine starch powder. When this is sufficiently dry, give them a coating of sugar, by throwing in the pan a ladleful of syrup, and shake the comfits, about the pan, by swinging it to and fro until the sugar is perfectly dry, when each almond or seed will have a coating of sugar. Continue in this manner until they are the required size. Let your sugar be boiled a degree less in finish- - ing them off.