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Then roll out a portion of almond paste in a strip, the depth and circumference of the cake, using a little rice flour or cornflour to prevent its sticking to the board and rolling-pin. Press this on to the cake, joining neatly, and make the edges as smooth and sharp as possible. If the cake is a large one, it will be found easier to make the strip in two pieces and then to be careful with the joining. If the cake is to be iced with a white icing as well, allow the almond paste to become quite dry and hard before putting on the second icing. Sometimes, as in the case of a simnel or Easter cake, no white icing is put on the top. In this case the almond paste should be scored across with a fork, or marked in checks with a fluted roller, brushed over with yolk of egg, and browned under a gas grill or in a quick oven. 2853. Royal Icing 2 lbs. icing sugar. 6 or 7 whites of eggs. 1 table-sp. lemon juice. Blue colouring. or 8 drops acetic acid. This is a hard white icing used principally for the icing of wedding, birthday, or Christmas cakes. Sieve the sugar, and put most of it into a basin. reserving a small proportion in case the icing should be made too moist, when this may be used. Add a very little blue colouring, either a drop of liquid blue or a tiny dust of stone washing blue, and just enough to take off the yellow shade from the sugar, and to make the icing a finer white. Then put in some acid, lemon juice, or acetic acid, as without this the icing would not harden on the cake. Acetic acid is really the best, and a pennyworth will last a long. time. Now add the whites of eggs by degrees, mixing the icing with a wooden spoon or spatula. It is very important that both basin and spoon should be dry and free from grease before commencing, or otherwise the icing might be spoiled. The whites of hens’ and not ducks’ eggs must always be used, and as these vary somewhat in size it is impossible to state the exact number required. Beat the icing as quickly as possible until it is perfectly smooth and of the right consistency ; from 5 to 10 minutes may be sufficient, but it requires some hard beating to make it workable. To be of tbe right consistency the wooden spoon should be able to stand vertically in it without falling. The icing is now ready for use, but in order to prevent a skin forming on the top it must be kept covered with a damp cloth. Place a piece of stick or wire across the basin to prevent the cloth falling down on the icing, then take a clean tea-cloth or old serviette — something that is not of a woolly nature — wring it out of cold water and lay it over the basin. This icing will keep for several days if it is attended to, but the cloth on the top must be kept damp, and the icing itself beaten up occasionally. If once a skin is allowed to form on the top through exposure to the air, the icing will be spoilt for all fine purposes, and especially for piping, as the little hard particles would choke up the tube. Keep the icing in a cool place. To Ice a Cake with Royal Icing. — It is a comparatively easy matter to put a plain coating of icing on a cake ; it is when something more elaborate, designs and ornaments, are required, that much patience and practice are necessary.