Pastel

“ The artist has at his command, without necessity of mixing his colours, every hue to be found in nature, so that freshness and luminosity can always be secured without fear of that loss of brilliancy commonly attendant on the mixing of colour on the palette. Moreover, the fact of pastel being dry permits the artist to leave his work and take it up again as he may choose; and he is free from many of the technical troubles and anxieties natural to oil and watercolour painting. ”

“ At one time he renders the morning mist lying over the fields, at another the haze of sultry noon, veiling and as it were absorbing the outlines and colours of all objects, the light of sunset streaming over field and woodland with a tender, tremulous glimmering, the delicate silver tone which veils the landscape on clear moonlight nights.
There is not another artist of the century who renders night as Millet does in his pastels. ”

“ Afterwards, in a series of pastels, it became clear who it was that had seen Venice. It was Mr. Whistler the exquisite colourist, not the exquisite etcher.
Mr. Whistler’s fame as an aquafortist, then, rests chiefly still on his Thames-side work; and, even there, less on the faint agreeable sketches done of later years, though these have their charm, like the better of his painted Nocturnes, than on the work of his first maturity. ”

“ It is a miracle of beauty to look at—and, to eat! Who made it? I ask, because the cooker of that cake has the soul of an artist. I wish to spend my days in the shadow of her wing.”
“I made it.” She blushed, happily, under the royal praise.
“You? Put a raisin in your diadem, as its central jewel!”
“You will not mock at the ‘museum’ any more when I tell you that I found the recipe for that cake in an old parchment. The Countess of Mountjoye invented the cake first in 1715 for the Prince of Paradis: and history says she was the only one of his sweethearts who never lost his affection. ”

“ Young folks anticipate Twelfth-night as a full source of innocent glee to their light little hearts. Where, and what is he who would negative hopes of happiness for a few short hours in the day-spring of life? A gentle spirit in the London Magazine beautifully sketches a scene of juvenile enjoyment this evening: “I love to see an acre of cake spread out—the sweet frost covering the rich earth below—studded all over with glittering flowers, like ice-plants, and red and green knots of sweetmeat, and hollow yellow [53, 54] crusted crowns, and kings and queens, and their paraphernalia. ”

“ Place the cake on a table wreathed in greens or flowers or on a flower-trimmed tray. As many prefer scarlet carnations, this flower and red candles will make a pretty party. Just after supper pass the loving cup filled with claret, or fruit punch or cider. Each guest takes a sip to the health of the host. If your guests enjoy cards, let them play bridge, euchre, cinch, hearts, or the new card games in which figures are involved. If they do not care for cards a short program of old ballads by a good singer is always liked. ”

“ As it was the custom for the more intimate friends to bring a cake, a pan of cookies, or a great jug of strong lemonade to such an affair, there was more food than twice this surging group of men, women, and children could possibly consume, so that the boys and girls could keep their mouths full of oily, nutty, walnut wafers and broken bits of layer cake without any conscientious scruples. One of the large kitchen tables was entirely covered with plates bearing layer cakes, with chocolate, maple, shining white, and streaky orange icings, or topped with a deadly coating of fluffy cocoa-nut. ”

“ They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet, is entitled to the last bit. ”

“ Finally, came the crowning event of the feast,—the cutting of the wedding cake, which had been the conspicuous decoration of one end of the flower-trimmed table. It was a real old-fashioned bride cake, with tiers and tiers of corrugated frosting, surmounted by a pagoda-like structure, within which was the tiny effigy of a bride with a flowing veil. At the corners of the cake were groups of cupids and doves, and, altogether, it is doubtful if the North Shore had ever seen a more elaborate and tempting wedding cake. ”

“ His festive gatherings, pre-eminently his cake-walks, at which a sugared and frosted cake is the proud prize of the couple with the most aristocratic step and carriage, are comic mixtures of elaborate ceremonial and the joyous abandon of the natural man. ”

“ Split, and remove a small portion of cake from the centre of each piece. Fill cavities of one-half the pieces with whipped cream sweetened and flavored, cover with remaining pieces, and press firmly together. Nuts or glacé fruits cut in pieces may be added to cream. Melt fondant, color, and flavor to taste. Dip cakes in fondant, decorate tops with pistachio nuts, violets, or glacé cherries, and place each in a paper case. ”

“ To reflect deeply on immortality, and at the same time to drink in comfortably the sweet odour of the girdle cake which the goodwife is cooking in the kitchen—it is in this mixed light that the poet stands, who has so characterised himself. ”

“ Use hard cake colors, not moist colors: grind a sufficient quantity of each on your palette every morning, keeping a separate plate, large and deep, for 109 colors to be used in broad washes, and wash both plate and palette every evening, so as to be able always to get good and pure color when you need it; and force yourself into cleanly and orderly habits about your colors. ”

“ I have known of cases where parents claimed that their children were not fond of such things. Believe them not. I liked pie, but not pudding; the rich, heavy fruit-cake of weddings, good, honest gingerbread, the brisk, crispy heat of the brittle ginger-snap, but not "plain cake,"—absurd viand! It is of the essence of cake not to be plain. As well say, acid sweetness. Nor did I like the hereditary election-cake of my ancient State and city. Fat pork I could not swallow; nor onions nor cabbage,—gross, indelicate vegetables! ”

“ Beside these were roasts of various kinds, and thin cakes of bread or manchets, and bowls of salad set off with wreaths of autumn leaves laid around them, and great baskets of grapes, white and purple, and of the native plum, so delicious when fully ripe in its three colors of black, white, and red. ”

“ We nibble our piece of cake, we sip from our steaming mug, noiselessly, slowly, our hearts filled with tender thoughts. We think of the hands which have made the tart, of the eyes which have watched the seething of this jam. ”

“ The centre basket contained perhaps fifty cakes—nothing on a small scale here—made of thin flaked pastry, iced over with sugar, filled with a confectionery of almonds, and quinces, and raisins, and orange-flower water, and an essence, one drop of which cost five shillings. These take a day to make, and are only met with in an elaborate ménage. Other tarts, lavishly coated with a snow of white sugar, contained jams [236] and nuts and all the sweet things dear to the Moorish heart. ”

“ We had many more things than these, and the boy in a dirty white coat and an old cap on his head passing round the hot perfumed wet towels every few courses, and for dessert we had little cakes made of bean paste filled up with almond paste and other sweets, all very elaborately made, and works of art to look at, but with too little taste to appeal much to us ”

“ The cake—it wasn’t a very big one, nor, as events proved, a very excellent one—sat in the center of the round table, the sixteen flames from the sixteen little pink candles making sixteen little points of rosy flame in the glow of the late sunlight. ”

“ One mix or dough from which can be derived a large benefit and satisfaction is the ordinary wine cake or layer cake mix, from which you can make layers for layer cakes, ten and five cent wine cakes, loaf cakes; adding chopped nuts and nut flavor to part of the mix, you can make nut cakes. By adding melted chocolate to a certain part of the mix, you can make devil’s food cakes, lemon cakes, Boston squares, chocolate and maple squares, raspberry and chocolate drops, cup and currant cakes, and other cakes like nut and cocoanut slices, penny golden-rod squares, etc., can also be made. ”

“ Whatever be the cake you give to the ménage, the best part of it will be set aside to offer to the master and mistress and their family. If it be a bull, the head and horns will be kept; if a dragon, the head and tail; and on the evening after the servants’ party, when your dinner is over, the cook will hastily don a white apron and knot her best silk handkerchief round her head, and will march into the dining-room bearing the remains of the cake with all its inedible decorations carefully rearranged to hide what has gone. ”

“ Make an icing with the whites of three eggs, twenty-four tea-spoonfuls of loaf sugar, and eight drops of essence of lemon.
When the cake is cool, mark it in small squares with a knife. Cover it with icing and ornament it while wet, with nonpareils dropped on in borders, round each square of the cake. When the icing is dry, cut the cake in squares, cutting through icing very carefully with a penknife. Or you may cut it in squares first, and then ice and ornament each square separately.
FRENCH ALMOND CAKE
Six ounces of shelled sweet almonds. ”

“ Put a stale sponge cake into a deep china or glass dish, pour round it some raisin wine or Marsala, and brandy to your taste, but enough to saturate the cake: when it is soaked up, strew sifted sugar over, and pour in the dish a rich custard. Ornament the top of the cake by sticking a light flower in the centre, or bits of clear currant jelly ”

“ Snow-flake Cake.—Half a cup of butter, two cups of sugar, four of flour, one of sweet milk, three eggs well beaten, one table-spoonful cream of tartar, half a teaspoonful of soda; or, if you use prepared flour, use no soda or cream of tartar. Bake the cake in shallow jelly-cake pans; while baking, grate two fresh cocoa-nuts carefully, and spread over each cake, as it comes from the oven, a thin frosting, and then sprinkle thickly with the grated nut. Three layers of cake make one cake. ”

“ If people are still baking such quantities of cake in memory of Christmas after all these hundreds of years, don't you suppose, Elsie, that the Apostles must have been fearful cake-eaters? To have left such an impression on the world! Cake is a kind of sacred thing at home even yet, isn't it? ”

“ French pastries are nationally popular and are very attractive for tea or fancy dessert service. The maker has wide scope for the display of individuality in devising and decorating pastries. Slices of jelly roll, loaf or sponge cake may be spread with mocha frosting to form individual cakes. Fruit-filled tarts, topped with a bit of meringue, are always popular. The real French pastry is made of puff paste, very tender and flaky, and filled with fruit. ”

“ If not a birthday, and decorative icing is desired for large or small cakes, nothing could be prettier than the roses. They can be used either as a border of conventional regularity around a large cake or in the center of small, round cakes covered with white icing. As a flower decoration, candy wild roses can be placed in a vase in the middle of the table. ”

“ This is only a plain ‘one, two, three, four’ cake, Marta, but it will be made nicer by the flavoring. When you know how to make this cake, always remember to vary the flavor, and the cake will seem much better than ordinary cup cake; sometimes you can add, the last thing, a cup of candied lemon and orange peel, cut fine,—I will show you how to candy them when we have collected enough,—or a cup of currants; either of these must be made warm, flour shaken through them, and the cake stirred only just enough, after they are in, to mix them, or they will all go to the bottom. ”

“ It was not the right valentine for the little Princess because it had been bought with his bag of gold. So the Prince gave the diamond heart back to the jeweller, and went on again.
After the Prince had gone quite a distance he came to a pastry shop. It was full of delicious things to eat, jam tarts, and little strawberry pies, thickly frosted cakes, and plum buns. In the window of the pastry shop was a huge cake baked in the shape of a heart. It was rich with sugar and spices, and the icing on the top was almost as thick as the cake itself. ”

“ Spread it evenly with a broad knife, over the top of each queen-cake, ornamenting them, (while the icing is quite wet) with red and green nonpareils, or fine sugar-sand, dropped on, carefully, with the thumb and finger.
When the cakes are iced, set them in a warm place to dry; but not too near the fire, as that will cause the icing to crack. ”

“ She must get that fruit dug out and on the ice at once.
She turned her attention to cake next, and when it was in the oven went at the mayonnaise dressing. She had made a chocolate layer cake, rich and dark, with a transparent chocolate filling and thick, white icing, and was just taking a sponge cake, light as a feather, out of the oven when the mistress arrived, fine and cool in a light [178] crêpe de chine, her hair marcelled and her face powdered to the last degree, leaving a perfume of luxury in her wake as she moved. ”