Cooking for profit

The best material for flowers and leaves is white wax although stearine answers very well for some of the less delicate forms. They are made by carving a flower on a carrot or turnip or potato, dipping it into melted wax and taking off the thin covering of wax that the vegetable shape has taken up. Wax impressions are thinner and finer than stearine, and wax can be pulled gently off of intricate shapes where any other material would break to pieces. Vegetables make the best shapes because wax will not adhere too tightly and they must be kept wet. Supposing Mrs. Butcher, mentioned in the catalogue as having special skill m such work to have carved a white turnip into the form of a rose and the end of a carrot into the shape and markings of a rose leaf, the next step would be to throw them into a pan of water and then melt some white wax in a tin cup. Take up the turnip rose, dip the face of it in the wax, then immediately in the cold water again and a thin pearly waxen rose can be pulled off the vegetable; dip the leaf -shaped carrot the same way and you have a waxen leaf. The wax must not be very hot. When it is cool enough to be on the point of setting, the leaves and flowers can be made with the greatest rapidity, sometimes dropping from the shape of themselves. By the same method fan-leaves, palms, bells, grape bunches, cups, thimbles, stars, faces, animals' heads, spear heads, cornices and mouldings can be made in great variety within certain restrictions which will soon be discovered upon trial, such as the impracticability of making a round ball-shaped flower, unless in two halves. It is best for a beginner to make a large number of very small flowers and leaves at first instead of large and heavy ones, the light ones being easy to fasten in place and less liable to fall off or be broken through projecting too far from the stand. To Decorate the Stands. The flowers and leaves are fastened in place by melting a little stearine upon them, hold a rose to its place with the fingers of one hand while the other applies the point of a hot knife to the place of contact. They may also be dipped in melted stearine and pressed in place while it sets. Heavy ornaments require tape stems to be attached to support them on the edge of the stand. It is scarcely possible to improve upon the appearance of a well executed wax stand in pure pearly white, yet colored wax can be used and colored flowers made by the same methods. The material of which the colored candles on Christmas trees are made is suitable for the purpose. Wax stands with colored ornaments are suitable for comic designs like pigs in dress coats, and similar notions.