To make essence of beef used in cooking and called glace in French, set three or four quarts of broth on a slow fire, in a saucepan and reduce it to jelly. Keep it simmering all the time; it may take twenty hours to reduce. When properly reduced, it is of a very dark-brown color and has a very pleasant odor.
When cold, it must be rather hard.
When essence of beef tastes like glue and has an unpleasant odor, it is not made properly, or with good beef.
If properly made, it will keep any length of time.
It is used to thicken sauces, to decorate boned birds, etc.; when in a hurry, it may be used to make soup, but, like every thing preserved, is of course inferior to fresh broth.
ICING.
Put about three tablespoonfuls of pulverized sugar in a bowl with the white of a small egg; and then mix and work well for at least five minutes with a piece of wood. When done it is perfectly white and rather thick.
Make a kind of funnel with thick, white paper; put the mixture in it, and by squeezing it out, you make decorations according to fancy, on cakes, charlotte russe, etc. You make the decorations of the size you please, by cutting the smaller end of the paper-funnel of the size you wish.
The mixture may also be spread on cakes with a knife, according to what kind of decoration is desired.
A charlotte russe may be decorated in the same way, with the same cream as that used to fill it.