your foundation, called by French confectioners
_fondant_; with your _fondant_ you can work marvels. But to begin with
the simplest French candies.

Take a piece of _fondant_, flavor part of it with vanilla, part of it
with lemon, color yellow (see coloring candies), and another part with
raspberry, color pink; make these into balls, grooved cones, or anything
that strikes your fancy, let them stand till they harden, they are then
ready for use.

Take another part of your _fondant_, have some English walnuts chopped,
flavor with vanilla and color pink; work the walnuts into the paste as
you would fruit into a loaf cake; when mixed, make a paper case an inch
wide and deep, and three or four inches long; oil it; press the paste
into it, and when firm turn it out and cut into cubes. Or, instead of
walnuts, use chopped almonds, flavor with vanilla, and leave the
_fondant_ white. This makes VANILLA ALMOND CREAM.

TUTTI FRUTTI CANDY.--Chop some almonds, citron, a _few_ currants, and
seedless raisins; work into some _fondant_, flavor with rum and lemon,
thus making Roman punch, or with vanilla or raspberry; press into the
paper forms as you did the walnut cream. You see how you can ring the
changes on these bars, varying the flavoring, inventing new
combinations, etc.

FONDANT PANACHE.--Take your _fondant_, divide it in three equal parts,
color one pink and flavor as you choose, leave the other white and
flavor also as you please; but it must agree with the pink, and both
must agree with the next, which is chocolate. Melt a little unsweetened
chocolate by setting it in a saucer over the boiling kettle, then take
enough of it to make your third piece of _fondant_ a fine brown; now
divide the white into two parts; make each an inch and a half wide, and
as long as it will; do the same with the chocolate _fondant_; then take
the pink, make it the same width and length, but of course, not being
divided, it will be twice as thick; now butter slightly the back of a
plate, or, better still, get a few sheets of waxed paper from the
confectioner's; lay one strip of the chocolate on it, then a strip of
white on that, then the pink, the other white, and lastly the chocolate
again; then lightly press them to make them adhere, but not to squeeze
them out of shape. You have now an oblong brick of parti-colored candy;
leave it for a few hours to harden, then trim it neatly with a knife and
cut it crosswise into slices half an inch think,