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Fourth Day: Jumbles

One cup sugar, two do. flour, one do. milk, one heaping tablespoonful butter, one small teaspoon soda and two of cream tartar, one egg, one-half teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and cloves. Half a cup of seeded raisins improves it. No. 43-RING JUMBLES.

One pound butter, one do. sugar, one and a quarter of flour, four eggs. Two tablespoonfuls of any kind of flavoring, or a small wineglass of rosewater. Cream the butter, add the sugar, then the yolks of eggs, then half the flour, then the whites, then the rest of the flour, stirred lightly. Cut out with a tumbler or cake-cutter, and from the middle of each, with a smaller cutter or the top of a canister, cut a round hole. Bake quickly, and sift fine sugar over them as soon as they are done.

No. 44-PLAIN JUMBLES.

One egg, one cup sugar, one-half do. butter, three teaspoonfuls milk, one do, cream tartar, one-half do. soda. No. 45-LEMON JUMBLES.

The above recipe, with the juice and rind of one large lemon, or the juice of two and the grated rind of one. "There!" said Aunt Jane, when the last one had been written down, "I think I have given you occupation for a long time-that is, if you make up all these good things. Which do you mean to begin on? " "Oh, please let us make ginger-snaps and some one other kind, and we'll all help each other. Tell us some kind of nice cookies." "You might better take something that is not to be rolled out, as there is but one rolling-board and pin. Suppose you try Tudor cake? The materials are not expensive, and if you spoil them there will not be much lost." "Now, Aunt Jane, that's too bad! We're not going to spoil anything! Just examine us and see if we don't know how to put cake together!" "Well, take that recipe, and tell me how you would go to work." "First, we'll rub the butter to a cream, then stir in the sugar, then the yolks of eggs; (while one has been mixing it, the others have been beating the eggs, you know,--) then the milk and part of the flour; then-" "No," said her aunt; "you've left out something." "Oh, yes; first you measure the cream tartar and sift it with the flour; then you put the whites of the eggs, then the soda, carefully dissolved in warm water, and poured off without the dregs; then the rest of the flour, and then you bake it." "Very well indeed, and you musn't forget to line your cake-pan with buttered paper if you want the cake very delicate, though it is not absolutely necessary. And you must always warm the pan or cake-tins first. Now tell me how you'll set about the ginger-snaps." "Oh, that's easy. Let me see-no eggs; I'll take lard, because that's easiest; set it near the fire to soften, stir in the sugar, and then the molasses and ginger; dissolve the soda in warm water and put it into the sour milk, and stir them in; and then just keep stirring in flour until you think you can roll it out." "When it gets too hard to stir with the spoon, you may mix it with your hand," said Aunt Jane. "But don't get in too much flour; it wants to have just as little as possible; and don't forget to flour the pie-board." "Why do you say 'softened' butter, Mamma, in some of these receipts?" asked Amy. "Because you never really melt butter for cake, even quite common cake; that is, you don't let it turn to oil. The nicest way is to set the cup or bowl with it in, into a pan of boiling water, and then it softens enough to have the sugar stirred into it, which is the main thing. For the more delicate kinds of cake, butter must be rubbed to a cream, either with a wooden spoon or with the hand." "It seems to me nearly every thing has the juice and rind of a lemon in it," said Mabel. "Fresh lemons are a great addition to cake," said Aunt Jane, "but you musn't make the mistake of flavoring every thing alike. There are some houses where all their cakes and custards and puddings taste alike, though they have a variety of recipes, because they make every thing with lemon, or nutmeg, or cinnamon, or whatever their taste may incline them to. For instance, I would never put lemon into any two things to be eaten at the same meal. You can have vanilla, or bitter almond, or rose water, or, what is often best, no flavoring at all." "There is one condition I must positively make," said Mrs. Vernon, as the impatient cooks left the dinner table. "I can not have Rhoda come back from her 'afternoon out' to find a disorderly kitchen and a great pile of dishes and pans to be washed. If you work in her nice, clean kitchen, you must clear up all traces of yourselves before she comes back." "Oh, yes, we will," said all at once, and they did it, too, for they knew that if they failed to keep their part of the agreement they would not enjoy the privilege another time. So as soon as Rhoda had washed the dishes and "tidied up," as she called it, in the kitchen, thev took possession of her dominions and set to work, after a parting caution from Aunt Jane as to the prime necessity of clean hands and nails.

We need not follow them through the afternoon's operations, which were quite successful, and produced a great dish full of nice ginger-snaps, and two flat, thin pansful of cake. Then they washed the utensils they had used, scraped the flour from the pie-board, and wiped it from the table without spilling any on the floor except a little dusting of it, which was easily disposed of with a broom, and put every article back into its place. "Why, bless ye, honey," said Rhoda, when Mrs. Vernon asked her about it in the evening, "you wouldn't never have knowed they'd been there at all!"