BREAD, CAKES, AND BISCUITS.
cakes. Foreign cooks bake in this way on their small char-
coal hot plates, and indeed prefer these to the ordinary fire
or range. The pan with its contents is placed on the trivet
over the opening of the hot plate, a second opening being
also kept up to the same heat to allow either the top or
bottom heat being replenished as required. Foreign cooks
also fix wires or strings to the small rack placed in the pan
to allow of its being lowered down into the pan with the
cake on it and lifted out again when the baking is con-
cluded.
It is wonderful what may be accomplished by homely
and makeshift utensils, and so many readers of the Queen
wander off into out of the way parts that it has seemed use-
ful to give hints for the utilisation of such simple processes
where better means may not be had, for however far one
may stray from home, one seldom cares to say good-bye to
all one's home ways and tastes. But though such hints
have been given for the amateur cook's benefit, it must be
distinctly impressed on mistresses living in the centre of
civilisation and within reach of all the latter's resources,
that they have no right to expect their cooks to work only
with such makeshifts. What may be willingly done once
or even twice in a way when necessity arises, becomes an
exasperation when rendered a daily necessity by the
thoughtlessness or the economy (?) of the mistress.
Especially is this the case when the cook is short-handed.
French mistresses are wiser, and grudge neither materials
nor utensils, sagely observing, Qui veut la fin veut les moyens,
and it is to this fact that the superiority of the foreign
bonne à tout faire over her British equivalent, “the
general,” is due.