To Colour Almonds or Sugar-Grains, or Sugar-Candy, for Cakes, or Pastry

Instructions

1. Blanch, dry, and chop the almonds rather coarsely.
2. Pour a little prepared cochineal into the hands, and roll the almonds between them until they are equally coloured.
3. Spread them on a sheet of paper, and place them in a very gentle degree of heat to dry.
4. Use spinach-juice (see page 455) to colour them green, and a strong infusion of saffron to give them a yellow tint.
5. They have a pretty effect when strewed over the icing of tarts or cakes, especially the rose-coloured ones, which should be rather pale.
6. Prepare the sugar in the same way, after breaking it first into lumps and then, with the end of a paste-roller, into grains about the size of a pea; but unless it be dry and hard, and carefully done, it will absorb too much of the cochineal.
7. When but slightly coloured it is very ornamental dropped on the borders of creamed tourtes, or on other varieties of fine pastry.
8. White sugar-candy broken into large grains or crystals and coloured in the same manner has a yet better effect.