Place royal icing in a pastry bag having a tube with small opening. Press the icing through slowly, following any design one may have in view. Points may be pricked in the flat icing at regular intervals as a guide. It requires some practice to acquire the facility for making very elaborate designs, but straight lines, dots, and circles around the cake are easy to make, and with these a great variety of combinations can be made. Tubes of various-shaped openings are made to give different forms to the icing pressed through them. To practise elaborate designs. If one cares to practise making fancy decorations, draw a design on a paper or slab and follow the lines with icing; scrape off the icing when it is done, and repeat the operation until familiar enough with the design to be able to make it without a guide.
[465-*] Cake made with butter needs to have the dough quite thick with flour, as the butter when melted acts as a wetting.
[467-*] If baked too fast this cake will be tough. It is well to set the cake-pan in a pan of water in the oven.
Chapter XXII
FROZEN DESSERTS
ICE-CREAMS, WATER-ICES, PARFAITS, MOUSSES, FROZEN FRUITS, PUNCHES, AND SHERBETS
Frozen desserts are the most acceptable of any that can be presented in the summer-time, and at any season they are served and expected at dinner entertainments.
Comparative trouble and expense. The trouble of making them is not greater than that of making any dessert of the same class, and the expense no more than any dessert using the same amount of eggs and cream; thus a plain ice-cream is the same as a custard, a mousse the same as whipped cream, etc.
Parfaits are especially delicious creams, and as they require no stirring while freezing are very quickly and easily made. The freezing of ice-creams which require stirring is accomplished in twenty to twenty-five minutes, and is much easier work than beating eggs for cake. In fact, the whole process of making ice-creams is easier than that of making cake, but the latter is so generally practised that nothing is thought of it. It will be the same with ice-cream if the habit is once formed. They have the advantage over hot desserts that they require no attention at dinner-time.