A Little Cook-Book for a Little Girl

Margaret did not wait till she reached the recipes for candy at the back of her book before she began to make it. She made it all the way along, whenever another little girl came to spend the afternoon, or it was such a rainy day that she could not go out. Nearly always she made molasses candy, because it was such fun to pull it, and she used the same rule her mother used when she was a little girl. Molasses Candy 2 cups New Orleans molasses. 1 cup white sugar. 1 tablespoonf ul butter. 1 tablespoonful vinegar. 1 small teaspoonful soda. Boil hard twenty minutes, stirring all the time, and cool in shallow pans. If you double the rule you must boil the candy five minutes longer. The best thing about this candy is that it does not stick to the fingers, if you let it get quite cool before touching it, and pull it in small quantities. Do not put any butter on your fingers, but work fast. Maple Wax Boil two cups of maple syrup till it hardens when dropped in cold water. Fill a large pan with fresh snow, and pack well; keep the kettle on the back of the stove, where the syrup will be just warm but will not cook, and fill a small pitcher with it, and pour on the snow, a little at a time. Take it off in small pieces with a fork. If there is no snow, use a cake of ice. Peanut Brittle Make the molasses candy given above, and stir in a large cup of shelled peanuts just before taking it from the fire. Put in shallow, buttered pans. Peppermint Drops 1 cup of sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls of water. 3 teaspoonfuls of peppermint essence. Boil the sugar and water till when you drop a little in water it will make a firm ball in your fingers. Then take it off the fire and stir in the peppermint, and carefully drop four drops, one exactly on top of another, on a buttered platter. Do not put these too near together. Pop-corn Balls Make half the rule for molasses candy. Pop a milk-can full of corn, and pour in a little candy while it is hot ; take up all that sticks together and roll in a ball ; then pour in more, and so on. Maple Fudge 3 cups brown sugar. 2 cups maple syrup. 1 cup of milk. 1/2 CUP °f water. Butter the size of an egg. 1 cup English walnut meats, or hickory-nuts. Boil the sugar and maple syrup till you can make it into a very soft ball when you drop it in water ; only half as hard as you boil molasses candy. Then put in the milk, water, and butter, and boil till when you try in water it makes quite a firm ball in your fingers. Put in the nuts and take off the fire at once, and stir till it begins to sugar. Spread it quickly on buttered pans, and when partly cool mark in squares with a knife. Chocolate Fudge 1 cup of milk. 1 cup of sugar. 1 pinch of soda. 3 squares of Baker's chocolate. Butter the size of an egg. Put the soda in the milk and scrape the chocolate. Mix all together until when you drop a little in water it will make a ball in your fingers. Take off the fire then, and beat until it is stiff paste, and then spread on a buttered platter. Sometimes Margaret added a cup of chopped nuts to this rule, putting them in just before she took the fudge off the fire. Cream Walnuts 2 cups of light brown sugar. Two-thirds cup of boiling water.