26. Fancy Sweets.
One pound of Coombs' Eureka Flour, half a pound of sugar, half a pound of butter; mix these well together, then add four eggs, yolks and whites separately, the whites beaten to a stiff froth; mix with enough milk to make the consistence of stiff whipped cream. Take out a third of the mixture, and colour a nice pink with cochineal, and flavour with a few drops of almond essence, also put in a few blanched almonds cut in half; the rest of the mixture flavour with lemon, and put in some glacé cherries cut in half. Well butter a square and shallow cake tin, pour in half the plain mixture with cherries, let it spread and flatten, then pour the pink mixture on the top of that, let that also spread and flatten, and then pour the rest of the cherry mixture on the top; smooth with a wet knife and bake till set and a nice colour. Leave it for about ten minutes, and turn out. Let it get quite cold, then cut it into small squares; smooth the top of each by cutting it quite even. Then pour over each an icing made thus—half a pound of confectioners' sugar, with about two tablespoons of water, stir well; just let it boil up, and cover the tops of the cakes smoothly; then sprinkle over the top with pink chip cocoa-nut, hundreds of thousands, pistachio nuts, or crushed crystallised violets, each cake with a different decoration. This is a pretty dish, and very nice.