When you are making wheat bread, and the dough is quite light and ready to bake, take out as much of it as would make a twelve cent loaf, and mix with it a tea cup full of powdered sugar, and a tea-cup full of butter that has been softened and stirred about in a tea-cup of warm milk. Add also a beaten egg. Knead it very well, put it into a square pan, dredged with flour, cover it, and set it near the fire for half an hour. Then bake it in a moderate oven, and wrap it in a thick cloth as soon as it is done. It is best when fresh.
Sift two pounds of flour into a deep pan, and cut up in it a pound of fresh butter; rub the butter into the flour with your hands, adding by degrees, half a pound of powdered white sugar; a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon; a beaten nutmeg; a glass of wine or brandy, and two glasses of rose water. Beat four eggs very light; and add them to the mixture with a salt-spoonful of pearl-ash melted in a little lukewarm water. Mix all well together; add, if necessary, sufficient cold water to make it into a dough just stiff enough to roll out; knead it slightly, and then roll it out into a sheet about half an inch thick. Cut it out into small cakes with a tin cutter, or with the edge of a tumbler; dipping the cutter frequently into flour, to prevent its sticking. Lay the cakes in shallow pans buttered, or on flat sheets of tin, (taking care not to let them touch, lest they should run into each other,) and bake them of a light brown in a brisk oven. They are best the second day.
Take four eggs, and separate the whites from the yolks. Beat the whites by themselves, to a stiff froth; then add gradually the yolks, and beat them both together for a long time. Next add by degrees half a pound of the finest loaf-sugar, powdered and sifted, beating it in very hard; and eight drops of strong essence of lemon. Lastly, stir in a quarter of a pound of sifted flour, a little at a time. Stir the whole very hard, and then with a spoon lay it on sheets of white paper, forming it into thin cakes of an oblong or oval shape. Take care not to place them too close to each other, lest they run. Grate loaf-sugar over the top of each, to assist in keeping them in shape. Have the oven quite ready to put them in immediately. It should be rather brisk. They will bake in a few minutes, and should be but slightly coloured.
Take a pound of shelled sweet almonds, and a quarter of a pound of shelled bitter almonds. Blanch them in scalding water, mix them together, and pound them, one or two at a time, in a mortar to a very smooth paste; adding frequently a little rose water to prevent them from oiling and becoming heavy. Prepare a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Beat the whites of seven eggs, to a stiff froth, and then beat into it gradually the powdered sugar, adding a table-spoonful of mixed spice, (nutmeg, mace, and. cinnamon.) Then mix in the pounded almonds, (which it is best to prepare the day before,) and stir the whole very hard. Form the mixture with a spoon into little round or oval cakes, upon sheets of buttered white paper, and grate white sugar over each. Lay the paper in square shallow pans, or on iron sheets, and bake the maccaroons a few minutes in a brisk oven, till of a pale brown. When cold, take them off the papers.
It will be well to try two or three first, and if you find them likely to lose their shape and run info each other, you may omit the papers and make the mixture up into little balls with your hands well floured; baking them in shallow tin pans slightly buttered.
You may make maccaroons with icing that is left from a cake.