The fun of cooking

Put this on the stove to heat, and stir till the sugar is dissolved, but, until then, do not let it boil. When there is no sugar left on the edges or bottom of the saucepan, let it boil without stirring; have ready a cup of cold water, and after three minutes drop in a little bit and see if you can make it into a ball in your fingers; if not, boil again till you can. Shake the saucepan occasionally so the sugar will not burn. When you can make a firm but not a hard ball, take it off, and set it in a pan of cold water till it is cool enough to put your finger in without burning. Then stir and beat, and, when it begins to get hard, knead it with your hands. Add flavoring while still rather soft. ^*This,'' Miss Betty said to the girls, *4s the one thing, above all others, that you must learn to make, because it is the beginning of all sorts of cream candies. In part of it we can put almond flavoring and make it into balls and put a half -almond on top ; or use vanilla flavoring, and bits of citron on top. Or we can add chopped nuts to it, or roll pieces of Brazil nuts in, and so on. And of course some of it we wiU color green, to put green pistachio-nuts on, and pink, to put bits of rose-leaves on. And we can take it while it is still pretty soft, and make little balls of it and dip each one in melted chocolate with the tip of a fork, and make lovely chocolate creams.'' *'0h. Miss Betty, let me make those!'' begged Mildred; and **0h. Miss Betty, let me make pistachio creams I " ; and * * Oh, please, dear Miss Betty, let me make the nut creams ! ' ' begged the girls. Miss Betty laughed, and shook her head at them all. * * The dining-room girls will finish these, all but the chocolate creams — ^those we will make to-morrow. ' ' So she took all the pans of fondant into the dining-room, and Mother Blair showed the girls there how to turn this plain white candy into colored bonbons, working on the marble slab ; they were lovely when they were finished, and packed in boxes like the rest. Meanwhile, Miss Betty said they would make : CHOCOLATE COCOANUT CAKES 1 cup of sugar. % cup of water. White of 1 egg. 1 cup of grated cocoanut from a package. 2 squares of chocolate, melted. Let the sugar and water boil till it spins a thread. Beat the egg white stiff, and very slowly pour in the syrup while beating all the time; add the cocoanut, and then the melted chocolate. Drop on sheets of buttered paper in spoonfuls. **If you want to have these like little biscuits, do not put in the chocolate; just put them on the paper after spreading it in shallow tins, and bake them till they are brown on top. I think it would be nice to make some of each. * ' When these were done and carried into the dining-room, Miss Betty said: **And now I will show you how I make my very own pinoche. When I have to earn my living, I shall do it by making this candy, and I 'm sure in a very short time I '11 be a millionaire.*' The girls laughed, and said they wanted to learn to get rich too. PINOCHE 2% cups of brown sugar. % cup of cream. Butter the size of an egg, % cup of chopped walnuts. % cup of chopped almonds. 1 teaspoonful of vanilla. Boil the sugar, cream, and butter together twenty minutes; add the nuts and vanilla, and beat well; when smooth and creamy, pour into buttered tins; when cool, cut in squares. **It 's just as well we have so many to work,'* said Mildred. * ' It takes lots of strength to beat this candy.*' **Yes, we need Jack's strong arm,'' said Miss Betty, smiling. * * To-morrow, we must get him to help. Now here is another kind of nut candy that is very good indeed, and when you are all done with that pinoche, we will make this next. ' ' NUT CREAMS