Six little cooks

Beat the whites and yolks of four eggs separately to a light foam; dilute the yolks with two teaspoonfuls of water, add the whites and beat for some time together; then add by degrees a pound of fine powdered sugar, and afterward a quarter of a pound of flour, beating constantly. Flavor with extract of lemon or orange juice. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture on buttered paper, ice them over with powdered sugar, and bake about ten minutes. These were, if anything, the crowning success of the day. The only trouble was that the children found them so good they had hard work to keep any to show what they had been about; but finally Amy seized what remained and resolutely shut them up in the closet, "out of the way of temptation," as she said, which gave the impression that the sugar drops were in some mysterious way tempted to be eaten. The birth-day itself was a busy one at Aunt Carroll's. First of all, there was the great cake to be iced. They decided on a plain icing (No. 57), flavored with lemon, and Mrs. King told them how it must be made. " You must beat the whites of eggs only till they are a little frothy before you begin to add the sugar," said she. " Beating them stiff only increases the labor, and makes the icing slow in drying and sticky when done. Shake in the sugar slowly with your left hand while you beat with the right. When you have cranberry sauce, it makes a very pretty variety to color a part of the icing with the jelly when you are icing small cakes. As I told you, they are always iced on the bottom, and to keep them firm while the icing is hardening, you can lay thin strips of wood across the sieve just far enough apart to rest the edges of the cake on and support it. A round loaf of cake will often fit into the top of a vegetable dish." As soon as the cake was thickly iced, and before it was dry, Aunt Jane said she would show the girls what she once saw done by a professional cook. She had procured from the confectioner's some pink frosting-sugar, and had made a little horn of white paper with an opening at the small end about as large as the head of a pin. Then she traced very lightly with a pin-point on the icing a pretty border in a sort of embroidery pattern, and in the center the word " Jessie," with the date of the anniversary underneath it. " Now, Rose," said she, " take this in your hand and go slowly over all the pattern I have traced on the top of the cake. The pink sugar will run out through the little hole in the end of the horn, and as the icing dries it will close in round it and keep it in place, even after it is cut. Not so fast! Your lines will be too thin; and not too slowly or you will make a heap instead of a fine line. There; now that your hand moves steadily it looks very pretty. " " It is too bad to spoil this handsome cake by sticking candles into it," said Edith.