In baking small cakes and cookies, grease the pans. If the pans cool before you can take off the cookies, set back on stove for a few moments. The cakes will then slip off easily. Sponge, drop cakes, anise
cakes, etc., are better baked on floured pans.
A whole raisin, an almond blanched, a piece of citron or half a walnut may be used to decorate.
A good way to glaze is, when cookies are about baked, rub over with a brush dipped in sugar and water and return to oven a moment.
FILLED BUTTER CAKES (DUTCH STUFFED MONKEYS)
Make a paste by working three-fourths pound of butter into one pound of flour, with three-fourths pound of light brown sugar, one egg, one teaspoon of cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.
Next mix one-half pound of finely chopped citron peel with one-half pound of ground almonds, and three ounces of butter. Then flavor with one-half teaspoon of vanilla and bind with the yolks of two eggs.
Roll out the dough and divide into two parts. Place one-half on a well-buttered flat pan and spread the mixture over it and cover with the other half of the paste. Brush with beaten egg, sprinkle with poppy seed
and bake in a moderately quick oven for one-half hour. When done let cool and then cut into square or oblong pieces.
The butter cakes may be made of one layer of dough sprinkled with citron and almonds and some poppy seed.
SUGAR COOKIES
In a mixing bowl put a cup of sweet butter and two cups of granulated sugar; beat these ingredients to a cream, then add three eggs, grated lemon rind, and four tablespoons of brandy. Beat the added ingredients
thoroughly with the others till the mixture is smooth and creamy. Sift three cups of flour in a big bowl with a teaspoon of salt and three teaspoons of baking-powder; stir this a little at a time in the bowl with the other ingredients, until the mixture is a light dough, just stiff enough to roll out. If there is not enough flour, sift more in to make the dough the desired stiffness; then dust the pastry board well with flour, put part of the dough on the board, toss it lightly with your hands from side to side till the dough is covered with flour. Then
dust the rolling-pin well with flour and roll the dough very thin; cut it in shapes with a cookie cutter, lift each cookie up carefully with a pancake turner, slip them quickly in a big baking-pan, the inside of which has been well rubbed with flour, and bake them in a moderate oven till light brown.
Just a moment before taking the pan out of the oven sprinkle the surface of the cookies lightly with granulated sugar. When a little cool take the cookies out of the pan with the pancake turner and lay them on a big platter. When they are cold put the cookies in a stone crock.
It is a good plan to have two or three baking-pans so, while one panful is baking, another may be filled and be ready to put in the oven when the other is removed. Only put enough dough on the pastry board at a
time to roll out nicely on it.
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