The butter used for making pastry should be good and sweet, for nothing imparts its own unpleasant flavor to everything it comes in contact with more decidedly than inferior butter. Salt butter is not objectionable, if before being used it is well washed, and afterwards squeezed in a floured cloth to free it from moisture. Rancid butter may have some of its disagreeable flavor removed by kneading it first in new milk and afterwards in water. For ordinary pastry clarified fat may be recommended in preference to lard or dripping, for it is entirely free from the fatty taste which characterizes the purest home-made lard, while that bought ready prepared is frequently adulterated, and moreover, has occasionally a strong, unpleasant taste. The objectionable characteristic flavor of dripping may be in some measure removed by creaming it, that is beating it with a knife On a plate, and raising it well with every movement of the hand, so as to subject every part to the purifying influence of the atmosphere.