Take one pound and a quarter of fine flour, and ten ounces of loaf sugar sifted through a fine sieve; make a bay, and put in it a sufficient quantity of the yolks or whites of eggs, or whole eggs, to make it into a moderate stiff paste; work it well, and make it quite smooth; let it remain covered over for a short time, that it may get mellow. If this paste is required white and delicate, use the whites only of the eggs. This is used for the frame-work or building of the pièces montées, or for the bottom or foundation on which you build your biscuits, sugar, etc. Roll it out on an even board or marble slab until it is about one-sixth of an inch in thickness, or more, according to the weight it has to bear. Dust your sheet, and roll it on the pin; then lay or roll it over a baking-plate slightly buttered; press out any air-bladders which may be underneath, and prick it with the point of a sharp-pointed knife in a few places; lay on your patterns, cut it out to the desired form, and bake in a moderate oven; or it may be cut out when the paste is half baked, and finish baking it afterwards; or it may be dried in the stove instead of being baked. If it should be blistered when it is taken from the oven, put it immediately on an even board, and place another on it; remove it when it is cold, and it will be quite straight.

This paste may be made with the addition of half an ounce of dissolved gum-dragon, pounding it well in a mortar, and using less eggs. Each of these may be coloured to any desired tint, when it should be dried in a stove instead of being baked. Fix the parts together, when finished, with some of the same paste made thin with dissolved gum, or with caramel sugar; ornament it with spun sugar, or with coloured sugar-sands. (See Coloured Sugar).

From this paste, or almond paste, may be made cottages, temples, fountains, pyramids, castles, bridges, hermits'-cells, vases, or any other required forms, which are to be made in different pieces and put together afterwards, or formed in moulds, and either baked or dried in the stove.