expensive, yet
they are also tedious to make. Many, however, live in country towns,
where there is no possibility of obtaining anything better than the
sandy products of the country bakery.

A few really fine cakes can be made at a time, and kept in an air-tight
box, with layers of paper between, for some time. In speaking, however,
of the tediousness I would not discourage the reader, for there are few
more tedious things in cooking than the rolling out, making, and baking
of thin cookies or ginger-snaps, and the result attained so inadequate.

_Rout Biscuits._--Boil a pound of sugar in half a pint of milk; grate
into it the rind of a lemon when cold; rub half a pound of butter into a
pound and a half of flour and a pound of almond paste grated fine; put
as much carbonate of soda as would lie on a silver dime into the milk,
and mix with the flour and almond paste; beat two eggs, and make the
whole into a firm, smooth paste; print this paste with very small
butter moulds if you have them, making little cakes just like the tiny
pats of butter one gets at city restaurants. Bake on a well-buttered pan
in a quick oven a very pale yellow.

_Macaroons._--These must be exempted from the charge of being tedious,
they are so easily and quickly made. One pound of almond paste grated,
one pound and a half of sugar, and the whites of seven eggs. Some
confectioners use a teaspoonful of flour, with the idea that the
macaroons are not so apt to fall. I recommend a trial of both methods;
they will both be good. Stir the sugar and the beaten white of eggs
together just enough to mix, then by degrees add the grated paste,
mashing with the back of a fork till it forms a perfectly smooth paste.
Oil several sheets of paper cut to the size of your baking-pans.
Dripping-pans may be used if you have no regular baking-sheets. Lay a
sheet of paper at the bottom of the pan. Put half a teaspoonful of the
macaroon paste on a scrap of buttered paper in the oven. If it spreads
too much it requires a very little more sugar; if it does not spread at
all, or so little as to leave the surface rough, it is too stiff, and
requires perhaps _half_ the white of an egg, or the finger dipped in
water and laid on each macaroon after they are on the paper is often
sufficient--a little practice is all that is necessary. Lay the paste in
half-teaspoonfuls on the oiled or greased paper. If the trial one
indicated that they were slightly too stiff, lay a wet finger