Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

While the cake is cooking, make some mocha cream. Tie loosely, in a piece of cheese-cloth, four large tablespoonfuls of fine-ground coffee, and after putting it into a coffee-pot, pour upon it half a cupful of boiling water. After boiling gently for ten minutes, remove the coffeepot from the stove ; and ten minutes later, pour out the liquid. Eeserve three table-spoonfuls, and, putting the remainder into a large cup, add milk enough to fill to the brim. Put this liquid mixture on the stove in a double-boiler. Beat together two table-spoonfuls of flour, a cupful of sugar, an egg, and the yolks of those four eggs the whites of which were used for the cake. Stir this mixture into the coffee when it boils, and cook for twenty minutes, stirring frequently. Set the mixture where it will cool, and when it is only blood-warm, beat into it two table-spoonfuls of butter, a little at a time. Spread on one sheet of the cake, and, placing over it the remaining sheet, ice the top. Make the icing in this way : Into the unbeaten white of an egg gradually beat a cupful of powdered sugar ; then add the three reserved spoonfuls of coffee, and after beating well, add enough sugar to stiffen the icing, — perhaps half a cupful, though only a small quantity at a time. Spread the icing upon the cake, and set away to harden somewhat. It should, however, be soft rather than brittle. Portsmouth Orange Cake. This calls for four large eggs, a cupful of powdered sugar, a cupful of granulated sugar, a cupful of flour, measured after a sifting, a teaspoonful of baking-powder, four sweet oranges, and the rind and juice of half a lemon. Grate the rind of one of the oranges into a deep plate, and squeeze upon it the juice of half the orange. Add a saltspoonful of tartaric acid. Let the grated rind and the juice stand for at least half an hour, and meanwhile mix the baking-powder with the flour, and then sift the latter for a second time. Separate the whites of the eggs from the yolks. Add the sugar to the yolks, and beat until very light ; then add the lemon rind and juice, and beat again. Beat the whites to a stiff froth, and stir them, together with the flour, into the blended yolks and sugar. This work must be done lightly and quickly, portions of the flour and egg being added alternately, and the mixture being cut lightly with a spoon. Bake in two shallow pans in a moderate oven for eighteen minutes. While the cake is baking and then cooling, prepare the oranges and icing. To make the icing, pour upon the cupful of powdered sugar the orange juice and rind that were put aside at the outset ; and with a good stirring the work is completed. If the orange was very large and juicy, more than a cupful of sugar may be needed ; if, on the contrary, it was not large, a little more juice may be required than can be extracted from half the orange. The icing should be thick enough for spreading smoothly and thickly over the cake. Pare the three and a half remaining oranges, and with a sharp knife cut them into thin slices, lengthwise. Remove all the seeds. When the cake has partially cooled, spread upon one sheet the sliced orange and the juice which is drawn in the act of slicing. Lay the second sheet upon the first, and after spreading with icing, set away until the icing has become hard. The cake will be ready in an hour or two.