Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

To Make the Filling. — Soak two table-spoonfuls of gelatine in four table-spoonfuls of cold water for two hours. Put a generous quart of whipped and drained cream into a small tin or granite-ware basin, and place this basin in a pan of ice-water. Sprinkle over the cream four table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar and two of sherry. Pour two table-spoonfuls of boiling water over the soaked gelatine, and stir until the latter is dissolved. Strain the liquid into the cream, stirring from the bottom all the while. When the mixture has become so thick that a spoonful of it will not sink into the rest when dropped, it will be ready for spreading on the cake. Spread half of the cream on the two cakes that have not been iced. Sprinkle over these same cakes onethird of a cupful of fine-chopped English walnuts and spread the remainder of the cream over all. Put the iced cakes on top, and set away in a cold place. The cakes may be decorated with cream walnuts obtained of a confectioner. Othello Cake. For the cake there will be required one cupful of sugar, half a cupful of butter, one cupful and threefourths of flour, half a cupful of milk, the whites of two eggs, and the yolks of four, one teaspoonful of baking- powder, half a teaspoonful of vanilla extract, and one ounce of chocolate. Scrape the chocolate, and put it in a small frying-pan with three table-spoonfuls of the sugar and one tablespoonful of water. Beat the butter to a cream, and gradually beat into it the sugar. Place the frying-pan with the chocolate over a hot fire, and stir until the chocolate mixture is smooth and glossy. Add this and the vanilla to the creamed sugar and butter. Beat well ; then gradually beat in the milk. Next add the yolks of the eggs, well beaten ; then the flour, in which the bakingpowder has been mixed; and finally the whites of the eggs, well beaten. Spread this mixture in four wellbuttered Washington-pie plates. Bake about eighteen minuses in a moderate oven. Icing. — For the icing use the whites of two eggs, two cupfuls of powdered sugar, two ounces of chocolate, two table-spoonfuls of water, one teaspoonful of vanilla extract, and one pint of walnut meats. Put aside half a pint of whole walnut meats ; chop the remainder moderately coarse. Scrape the chocolate, and put it in a small frying-pan with six table-spoonfuls of sugar and two table-spoonfuls of the water. Put the whites of the eggs in a bowl, and add a table-spoonful of sugar to them. Beat for five minutes ; then add another table-spoonful of sugar. Continue this until all the sugar has been beaten into the eggs. Now put the frying-pan over a hot fire, and stir until the chocolate is smooth and glossy. Pour this preparation into the icing ; add the vanilla, and stir well. Put two of the cakes on plates ; spread a layer of the icing on each cake. Sprinkle the chopped walnut meat over the icing, and put the other two cakes on top of the first two. Cover them with icing, and decorate with the whole walnut meats. Set in a cool place to harden the icing. Neapolitan Cake.