Cream the shortening, add the sugar, and mix well. Beat the egg and add it. Sift the dry ingredients and add alternately with the milk and molasses. Drop on greased sheets and bake in a moderate oven for about 15 or 20 minutes.

8. APPLYING ORNAMENTAL ICING TO CUP CAKES.--Sometimes it is desired to put icing on cup cakes in an ornamental way. In such an event, an uncooked icing is used and it is usually applied by means of a pastry tube, although certain simple designs can be made with a small paper cornucopia. When icing is to be used for this purpose, it should be of the consistency shown in Fig. 4; that is, it should be so heavy that a large quantity of it will cling to the spoon, and when it drops it will fall in a mass rather than run off.

Have the pastry bag clean and dry, and make it ready for use by slipping the pastry tube inside of the bag, as shown in Fig. 5. The point of the tube should protrude from the narrow end of the bag, which is too small to allow the top of the tube to be pushed through. The cakes to be decorated with the aid of a pastry tube are usually prepared, as the cake in the illustration shows, by covering it with a perfectly smooth coating of uncooked icing of some kind.

With the tube inserted and the cake coated, the work of decorating may be taken up. Roll the top of the bag down, as shown in Fig. 6, and into it put as much of the icing as is desired. See that the icing is pushed as far down into the end of the bag as possible. Then, as in Fig. 7, hold the top of the bag shut with one hand and with the other grasp it at the place where the contents end. When the hands have been so placed, press down on the bag so that the icing will be forced from the point of the tube. To make the decorations most satisfactorily, have the point of the tube pressed tightly against the surface of the cake and raise it very slowly as the icing comes out. Otherwise the shape of the design will not be good, as a little experimenting will prove. The rosette tube is used to make the decorations here shown, but if a different form of decoration is desired, one of the other tubes may be selected.

9. With cakes of this kind, it is often desired to have a simple decoration without first applying the foundation icing. This can be done, as shown in Fig. 8, by pressing icing through a pastry bag containing the rosette tube and placing the decoration merely on the center of each cake. This is suggested as an economical use of icing and a decoration a little out of the ordinary. The points of the pastry tube should be bent toward the center in order to produce the rosettes in the manner here shown. In fact, the shape of a rosette can often be changed to some extent by opening or closing these points a trifle.