“Before I go away I want to try it, if oranges are to be got yet, out here.”
“I saw a few pale things, but Harry can bring some early Floridas.”
As they talked they worked. The bread-board was put between them, and the Genoese cake was split carefully into four even layers. The rounded sides were trimmed off wide enough to cut into odd-shaped pieces to be dipped into icing.
The cochineal had now boiled fast about ten minutes uncovered, and by the rim round the little saucepan showed it had diminished to one-half.
“Now if one can avoid getting one’s fingers in it, and looking like an executioner for a day or two, it will be very nice; where’s the alum, Molly?”
Molly handed the tiny packet containing two drachms of alum to Mrs. Welles. It was put into the cochineal, stirred, and then a small strainer was put on a cup, a piece of muslin laid in it, and the coloring poured through it; then the ends of the muslin were gathered together and the sediment gently pressed with a spoon and then thrown away.
Molly, meanwhile, had been spreading one of the layers of cake with the lemon paste, very thinly, and laid another on top of it,—this was one cake; the other layer was spread with raspberry jam, and on that also a slice was laid. I have said that the rounded sides were cut off, leaving the centre square. These sides were cut into three-cornered pieces; there were, consequently, a number of these corner pieces, and two square cakes,—one with raspberry jam, one with lemon. Molly had brought out the French or fondant icing, the vanilla flavoring, the bitter almond, and the caramel coloring. She divided the icing, putting one part into a small bowl which she set in a saucepan of boiling water, stirring it till it was creamy. Mrs. Welles had laid a sheet of confectioner’s paper on the board, and when the icing was melted, Molly brought it to the table and put to it a very small half tea-spoonful of vanilla, and stirred it; then she dipped a table-spoon in the boiling water, shook the water from it and then took it full of the icing from the bowl and poured it on the layers of cake containing the lemon, and spread it, using more icing as she needed it, smoothing it with a knife dipped into boiling water and shaken.
When it was done, Mrs. Welles warmed a knife and cut the cake into neat tablettes an inch wide and two inches long, while Molly put the same icing over the fire, stirred it slowly till the water under it was boiling, and the icing creamy. She took it to the table, colored it a beautiful creamy coffee color with a few drops of caramel, and then dropped the corner pieces, one by one, as fast as she could, into it, taking them out as soon as they were covered, and laying them on the waxed paper with a fork. Before half were done the icing got stiff, and she had to put it on the fire once more; and this time, as each heating up made the icing a degree higher candy, she put in a few drops of water from the end of a spoon,—a dozen drops perhaps in all,—then the icing became creamy again. She finished dipping the cakes, all but three or four, for which the icing fell short. Now the other portion of icing was put in a bowl, melted to cream in boiling water, a few drops of cochineal added to it, and a few drops (very few) of almond flavoring. The cochineal made it a beautiful pale pink. This was laid on the tablette of cake in which was raspberry jam, in the same way as the white, and it also was cut into tablettes while Molly dipped the rest of her three-cornered pieces of cake into the pink icing.
There was now a plate of pink, almond-iced tablettes with raspberry jam; one of white, vanilla-iced tablettes with lemon filling, and on the sheet of waxed paper lay several that looked like large, oblong, French candies, pink and pale coffee-colored,—being completely covered with icing, no one could tell they were cake.
“Now the cakes are all made, are they not?” asked Mrs. Welles.