ers, dried in a towel and dredged with
flour before they are suitable for use.

Raisins, and all dried fruits for pies and cakes, should be seeded
stoned and dredged with flour before using.

Almonds should be blanched by pouring boiling water upon them and then
slipping the skin off with the fingers. In pounding them, always add a
little rose or orange-water, with fine sugar, to prevent their
becoming oily.

Great care is requisite in heating an oven for baking pastry. If you
can hold your hand in the heated oven while you count twenty, the oven
has just the proper temperature and it should be kept at this
temperature as long as the pastry is in; this heat will bake to a
light brown and will give the pastry a fresh and flaky appearance. If
you suffer the heat to abate, the under crust will become heavy and
clammy and the upper crust will fall in.

Another good way to ascertain when the oven is heated to the proper
degree for puff paste: put a small piece of the paste in previous to
baking the whole, and then the heat can thus be judged of.

Pie crust can be kept a week, and the last be better than the if put
in a tightly covered dish and set in the ice chest in summer and in a
cool place in winter, and thus you can make a fresh pie every day with
little trouble.

In baking custard, pumpkin or squash pies, it is well, in order that
the mixture may not be absorbed by the paste, to first partly bake the
paste before adding it, and when stewed fruit is used the filling
should be perfectly cool when put in, or it will make the bottom crust
sodden.

HOW TO MAKE A PIE.

After making the crust, take a portion of it, roll it out and fit it
to a buttered pie-plate by cutting it off evenly around the edge;
gather up the scraps left from cutting and make into another sheet for
the top crust; roll it a little thinner than the under crust; lap
one-half over the other and cut three or four slits about a quarter of
an inch from the folded edge (this prevents the steam from escaping
through the rim of the pie, and causing the juices to run out from the
edges). Now fill your pie-plate with your prepared filling, wet the
top edge of the rim, lay the upper crust across the centre of the pie,
turn back the half that is lapped over, seal the two edges together by
slightly pressing down with your thumb, then notch evenly and
regularly with a three-tined fork, dipping occasionally in flour to
prevent sticking. Bake in a rather qu