Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book: A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping

and a little of the grated rind. The icing should be of the right consistency to be applied with a pastry brush. Let the cakes stand in a cool, dry place until the icing has hardened. Vanities (No. 1) Beat two eggs; stir in a pinch of salt and a half-teaspoonful of rose water; add sifted flour until just stiff enough to roll out. Cut with a cake-cutter and fry quickly in hot cottolene or other fat. Sift powdered sugar on them while hot, and when cool put a teaspoonful of jelly in the center of each. Vanities (No. 2) Boil a cupful of milk and thicken it in the saucepan with flour to a stiff dough. Let it become cool, then break in three eggs, one at a time, and beat thoroughly. Add a tablespoonful of melted butter. Drop it by small teaspoonfuls into hot cottolene or some good fat, fry to a delicate brown; drain and roll in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. Anise cakes Cream a half-pound of butter with a half-pound of sugar, add three well-beaten eggs and enough flour to make a stiff dough, adding to the flour an ounce of anise seed. Roll into a thin sheet, cut into shapes with a cutter and bake. Hermits Cream together a cupful of butter and two of sugar. Beat in the whipped yolks of three eggs, add a half-cupful of milk and then the beaten whites. Work in two cupfuls of flour, sifted twice with a teaspoonful of baking-powder, and if this does not make a dough that could be rolled out, add more flour cautiously, not to have the cakes too stiff. Roll into a _very_ thin sheet, strew thickly with the kernels of hickory-nuts, pecans or English walnuts, chopped fine and sprinkled with sugar. Fold the dough once over the nuts, passing the rolling-pin lightly over the upper sheet, and cut into rounds with a cake cutter. Bake in a quick oven, covered, for fifteen minutes; uncover and brown. Plain cookies (Contributed) Cream together one cupful of butter and two cupfuls of sugar.