Cloves and allspice Mace and nutmeg Cinnamon

1/2 teaspoonful each I teaspoonful each 3 teaspoonfuls

Remarks. This is the table that Miss James showed the class how to use in their notebooks. You have made quick breads. Can you not think out the way of mixing cake? Remember about creaming (rubbing soft) the butter and sugar. See Lesson 20.

Cookies.

What and how much Butter Sugar Eggs Milk Flour

Baking powder Salt

1 cup 11/2 cups

3 tablespoonfuls about 3 cups 1 teaspoonful 11/2 teaspoonfuls

How to make. The flavoring may be two teaspoonfuls of vanilla, or lemon essence, one or two tablespoonfuls of ground spice, or caraway seeds.

For baking use a floured iron sheet or flat pan. Temperature 4000 F., or even more. The baking requires from 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the cooky.

Method of mixing. Sift all the flour, and stir the salt and baking powder with one cup of the flour. Cream the butter, and beat in the sugar. Beat the whites and yolks of the eggs together, and add to the creamed butter and sugar. Add the flour and milk alternately; that is, a quarter or third of the flour, then a portion of the milk, and so on. First stir; then beat vigorously.

Shaping the cookies. Turn the dough out upon the floured board, gently roll it out to a quarter of an inch, cut and place cookies in a floured pan; or, cut off a small piece, roll it in the flour, and pat it down to a round. This last way may seem to take longer; but it is easier, and there is no board to clean afterward.

A plainer cooky is made with 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup water or milk, with somewhat more flour.

Remarks. These are a good sweet for children to take for the school lunch and to serve at entertainments.

Sugar from the farm. When the home-making class at the Pleasant Valley School studied the question of sugar and sweet cakes, Miss James talked about the use of maple sugar in place of the cane or beet sugar that we buy. There is a sugar-maple grove on the Allen farm, and the pupils were invited to a "sugaring off" when the time came for making the sugar and sirup.1 Mrs. Allen has the old-fashioned habit of using maple sugar at the table for cereals, for berries and fruit, and even for coffee and tea; she finds it useful in cooking, also. It is worth while to set out sugar maples, for they grow as far south as Texas, as well as in the eastern states, middle west, and northwest.

Why not keep bees? We may make sugar in the home grounds, and employ honeybees to do the work. A few hives are not difficult to care for, and the bees will more than repay us for our labor.

Using honey in place of cane sugar. Honey is delicious on cereal and bread. We are experimenting with its use in cooking, a practice common in old times, especially in Europe. It may be used in cakes, cookies, and desserts. There is an acid in honey, and, therefore, it can take the place of molasses in some recipes.

1 See Farmers' Bulletin No. 516, and Bureau of Forestry Bulletin No. 59, U. S. Department of Agriculture.