Perfection in baking

To beat up cream well, it should have been standing twenty-four hours, undisturbed — what is called double cream: To beat it up everything must be very clean and cold. Beat ilp slowly and easily, then, when done, add to every quart five ounces of powdered sugar and one teaspoonful of vanilla. Red Cochineal Color. Mix in stone or porcelain basin one-fourth of an ounce of cochineal ground up very fine, one-fourth of an ounce of burnt alum, onefourth of an ounce of cream of tartar, and pour over this one pint of hot rainwater; then add one-fourth of an ounce of salts of tartar; mix and strain next morning; then add one-half of an ounce of gum arabic. Yellow Coloring. Saffron, boiled down, with a little sugar and rainwater, and then filtered through a glass funnel, is the old style of coloring. But now there is such a number of colorings, liquid and paste, on the market, that it does not pay to make it yourself. Blue Coloring. Generally ultramarine is used, but it must be handled carefully, being very strong. For painting ornaments and toys it is mixed with a little gum arabic and sugar solution. Colored Sugar Sand. Sift coarse sugar through a fine sieve to separate all the fine dust. Warm the coarse sugar a little in a kettle, make a cavity in the center and pour into it a little coloring; mix with a little of the sugar first, gradually rubbing in more of the sugar, until all is mixed evenly. On a heavy baking tin lay strong paper, spread the sugar over it, warm well through in oven, stir up thoroughly, warm again, and when perfectly dry, sift through a coarse sieve and pack in glass jars, but do not expose to the sun. Lemon and Orange Sugar. Grate nice, hard lemon or orange skins (not too deep — only the yellow part), and mix with sufficient powdered sugar and set away in air-tight jars. — 94 — Vanilla Sugar. Cut up very fine two or three sound vanilla beans and weigh off one pound of cut lump sugar. Put the vanilla with part of the sugar in a mortar and pound fine. Then sift it, put the remaining vanilla back in the mortar, add more sugar, pound fine again, sift, and so keep on, until all is beaten to fine powder. Then pack away air-tight. Orange and Lemon Zest. To get the very finest aroma of the fruit without any bitter taste to it, rub hard lemons or oranges over lumps of sugar. As soon as the sugar is covered with the skin, scrape it off with a sharp knife and rub over it again. So keep on, until the outside skin of all the lemons or oranges is rubbed off. This is especially fine flavoring for ice creams, cremes and icings. Dominoes, Bake a sheet about three-fourths of an inch thick of sponge or gold cake mixture (see Parts IV. and V.). Let it stand one day, if possible, then cut in slices two inches wide. Turn the bottom up and spread thin with jelly. Now roll a piece of marzipan, very thin, cut in same size strips, to cover the top of slices, and frost over very thin with water icing. Now, with a sharp knife cut in blocks again the size of domino blocks. Let them stay close together; draw a line through the center with red icing, then with finer tube draw two lines with white royal icing on the sides, and ornament with dots of chocolate to represent the numbers on the dominoes. Potatoes.