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 on each, sift powdered sugar over, and then put a pinch of chopped and blanched almonds in the centre with just enough pressure to keep them in place. As the macaroon spreads in the oven the almonds scatter themselves.