Take a sponge-cake No. 1, or a Genoese cake mixture, and make it a little stiffer with flour (enough batter can usually be saved from layer cake to make a few fancy cakes). With a spoon or pastry-bag drop it in balls one half inch in diameter; bake, and place two together with a little jam or jelly between them. Cover them with soft royal icing; have them all of the same color. If green, use pistachio flavor as directed, page [391], and sprinkle the tops with chopped pistachio nuts; if white, with almonds; if pink, leave them plain, and flavor with rose.

LITTLE POUND-CAKES

Use the Genoese mixture with a few currants added, or the plain pound-cake mixture. Bake in small tins one and a half inches in diameter; take care that they rise evenly so they are flat on top. Ice the top only with any kind of icing.

ORANGE QUARTERS

Use the Genoese or any butter-cake mixture, making it quite stiff with flour; flavor it with lemon- and orange-juice, and add a little of the grated rind of orange. Drop a small tablespoonful of the cake mixture at intervals into the tin made for this cake (see [illustration]), and bake in a moderate oven; cover the wedge-shaped sides of the cakes with soft royal icing flavored and colored with orange-juice.

ALMOND WAFERS

Take one tablespoonful each of flour and powdered sugar and one half saltspoonful of salt. Sift them well together. Beat the white of one egg just enough to break it, and add as much of it to the flour and sugar as it will take to make a creamy batter; flavor with a few drops of almond essence. Grease the pans lightly and flour them as directed on page [464]. Drop a half teaspoonful of the paste on the pan, and with a wet finger spread it into a thin round wafer. Bake it in a very moderate oven until the edges are slightly browned, then, before removing from the oven door, lift each wafer, and turn it around a stick. They stiffen very quickly, and the rolling must be done while they are hot.

VENETIAN CAKES