The easiest way in housekeeping and cooking

Drop Cakes. Any of the rules last mentioned become drop cakes by buttering muffin- tins or tin sheets, and dropping a teaspoonful of these mixtures into them. If on sheets, let them be two inches apart. Sift sugar over the top, and bake in a quick oven. They are done as soon as brown. Cream Cakes. One pint of boiling water in a saucepan. Melt in it a piece of butter the size of an egg. Add half a teaspoonful of salt. "While still boiling, stir in one large cup of flour, and cook for three minutes. Take from the fire ; cool ten minutes ; then break in, one by one, six eggs, t CAKE. 231, and beat till smooth. Have muffin-pans buttered, or large baking-sheets. Drop a spoonful of the mixture on them, allowing room to spread, and bake half an hour in a quick oven. Cool on a sieve, and, when cool, fill with a cream made as below. Filling for Cream Cakes. One pint of milk, one cup of sugar, two eggs, half a cup of flour, and a piece of butter the size of a walnut. Mix the sugar and flour, add the beaten eggs, and beat all till smooth. Stir into the boiling milk with a teaspoonful of salt, and boil for fifteen minutes. When cold, add a teaspoonful of vanilla or lemon. Make a slit in each cake, and fill with the cream. Corn-starch may be used instead of flour. This makes a very nice filling for plain cup cake baked on jelly- cake tins. Meringues, or Kisses. Whites of three eggs beaten to a stiff froth ; quarter of a pound of sifted powdered sugar ; a few drops of vanilla. Add the sugar to the whites. Have ready a hard- wood board which fits the oven. Wet the top well with boiling water, and cover it with sheets of letter-paper. Drop the meringue mixture on this in large spoonfuls, and set in a very slow oven. The secret of a good meringue is to dry, not bake ; and they should be in the oven at least half an hour. Take them out when dry. Slip a thin, sharp knife under each 'one, and put two together ; or scoop out the soft part very carefully, and fill with a little jelly or with whipped cream. In the first place, don't make either, except very semioccasionally. Pastry, even when good, is so indigestible that children should never have it, and the elders but seldom. A nice short-cake made as on p. 209, and filled with stewed fruit, or with fresh berries mashed and sweetened, is quite as agreeable to eat, and far more wholesome. But, as people will both make and eat pie-crust, the best rules known are given. Butter, being more wholesome than lard, should always be used if it can be afforded. A mixture of lard and butter is next best. Clarified dripping makes a good crust for meat pies, and cream can also be used. For dumplings nothing can be better than a light biscuit-crust, made as on p. 208. It is also good for meat pies. Plain Pie-Crust. One quart of flour ; one even teacup of lard, and one of butter ; one teacup of ice- water or very cold water ; and a teaspoonful of salt.