Cream the butter and sugar together until very light; add the yolks well beaten; then the almonds blanched and cut in strips; mix; add the vanilla and stir in lightly the flour. The dough should be rather soft. Take a small piece at a time, drop it in powdered sugar, and roll it between the hands into a ball one inch in diameter. Put a piece of pistachio nut on the top. Place the balls a little distance apart on floured pans (see page [464]), and bake in a moderate oven ten to fifteen minutes, or to a pale color. They will flatten in baking and have the shape of macaroons.
GAUFFRES
This receipt was obtained in Paris, and makes the little cakes one sees for sale at all the French fêtes, and also on the sea-beaches, where the vender calls so cheerily, “Voici les plaisirs.” They are baked in a kind of small waffle-iron. The plaisirs are rolled as soon as taken from the iron.
Add a dash of salt to the whites of six eggs, and whip them to a stiff froth. Put a half pound of flour in a bowl, and add enough water to make a thin batter; flavor it with vanilla, then add the whipped whites of the eggs. Bake one gauffre to see if the batter is of the right consistency. It should be very thin, and water can be added until it is right. Have the iron hot, and grease it well with butter or oil. Pour in the batter, and let it run evenly into all the grooves; close the iron, and bake on both sides over hot coals. The iron must be very clean, smooth, and well greased, or the gauffres will stick. Dredge them with powdered sugar as soon as baked.
JUMBLES, COOKIES, AND PLAIN CAKES
JUMBLES
Beat to a cream one cupful of butter with two cupfuls of sugar. Add three eggs, the yolks and whites beaten separately; then the flavoring. Stir in lightly enough flour to make a paste just firm enough to roll thin. Cut it into circles, and with a smaller cutter stamp out a small circle in the middle, leaving the jumbles in rings. Place them in a floured pan, brush the tops with white of egg, and sprinkle with pounded loaf sugar. The sugar should be in small lumps. Bake in a moderate oven to a light color.
SAND TARTS
Make the mixture given for jumbles. Cut it into squares or diamonds, place them in floured pans, brush the top with white of egg. Sprinkle with granulated sugar mixed with ground cinnamon. Place a piece of blanched almond in the center of each one.