À la mode cookery

Take two silver forks, tie them together, dip the ends of the prongs into the sugar ; with the right hand whisk the sugar to and fro quickly over a rolling-pin, and the higher it is thrown the better. It will fall into a number of threads. Many persons stand on a chair when they are spinning sugar. To boil to the crack. Boil it till when a little is put into cold water it hardens and snaps like glass. Squeeze in a little lemon-juice, let the sugar remain CAKES, ETC. 197 one minute longer on the fire, set the pan in another of cold water, and it will be ready for use. But to spin sugar properly and to make designs in it, it is quite necessary to have a couple of lessons. Almond Rings Take one pound of the best flour, pass it through a sieve to prevent any lumps. Dissolve half a pound of butter in a little warm milk and stir in the flour till it becomes a very smooth paste. Roll it out to a quarter of an inch in thickness and cut it into rings with two round cutters, one, of course, larger than the other. Place them on a tin or tins in a moderate oven for a quarter of an hour. Make some white icing and put it on the cake-rings whilst they are hot. Make the icing with half a pound of ground almond-paste mixed with a table-spoonful of elder-flower water. Beat the whites of two eggs to a very stiff froth and add to the almond mixture, then mix in slowly a pound of the best icing sugar. When the cakes are iced, they can be sprinkled with very finely chopped pistachio-kernels and ornamented in any fanciful way that the cook may like. Angels' Food Take the whites of eleven eggs, one and a half tumbler of castor sugar, sift four times, beat the eggs to a stiff froth, add the sugar very lightly until poured into the pan, which should be greased. Let them bake one hour ; turn out carefully ; let them cool, and then ice them over with either pink icing flavoured with noyau or brown icing flavoured with coffee. Bermuda Cake Beat four ounces of butter to a cream, beat the yolks and whites of two eggs separately for twenty minutes. Next add four ounces of sugar and the same of arrowroot, which has been rubbed through a sieve with the grated rind of a lemon. Mix all well together for half an hour. Line a cake-tin with greased paper, pour the mixture in, and bake in a moderate oven. When cool, ice it over with pink icing flavoured with maraschino and ornament with glace cherries and leaves cut in angelica. Brandy Snaps Melt two pounds of butter in a stewpan, then add three ounces of treacle, two of brown sugar, two ounces of flour, and a quarter of an ounce of ground ginger. Mix all thoroughly off the fire and then put one tea-spoonful of the mixture at intervals on a baking-tin. They will only take a few minutes to run into wafers and turn brown. Take out and let them remain for one minute, remove from the tin, and roll up the top part outside. Keep in a tin in a dry place. These are now fashionable for five-o'clock tea in the winter. Cherry Cake