st from twenty-five cents to one dollar; but any tinsmith can
easily make one out of an eight-inch piece of heavy tin, shaped so as to
form a cornucopia, with the smaller opening not more than three-eighths
of an inch in diameter, and attached to a handle at least twelve inches
long.

For heating mixtures, white enamel dishes are preferable to tin or
aluminum. For mixing, wooden spoons are better than metal ones, because
the mass which is being stirred does not stick so readily. Wooden
paddles are often better yet, for their flat surfaces do not retain
masses so tenaciously.

Perhaps the most useful tool of all is a nameless instrument which does
duty for both knife and spoon, and in addition has virtues all its own.
It is particularly valuable for reaching the corners of pans. This tool
is not on the general market, but can be made by most metal-workers--either
tinsmiths or blacksmiths. A piece of spring steel, about ten inches
long, rounded at the end, and curved as shown in Fig. 3, is riveted into
a wooden handle. Heavy tin may be substituted for the steel, if desired.

[Illustration: Special Knife. Fig. 3]

A molasses-candy or taffy pull without a hook may be good fun, but it is
hard on the candy as well as on the hands. A blacksmith can easily make
the hook of round iron, about a half-inch in diameter and eighteen or
twenty inches long. The rod should be bent until it forms roughly a
letter J, with the tip about seven inches from the horizontal line. The
top--the upper part of the horizontal line of the J--should be pounded
flat, and two holes bored for screws.

Be sure to attach the hook to the wall firmly, and about level with the
shoulders. Hooks may be purchased for about fifty cents apiece, but
those made by the blacksmith will do as well. Even with the hook, it is
well to wear canvas gloves, so that the mass can be handled hotter, and
in a more hygienic fashion than with bare hands. Canvas gloves are
easily laundered--something which cannot be said of the expensive
buckskin gloves recommended for this purpose.

For use in "cutting in" fondant and other small masses it is well to buy
a four inch wall paper knife--a tool which can be bought for from ten to
twenty-five cents. Fondant should never be beaten, but instead it should
be "cut in." This process is scraping up the whole mass, folding it over
and cutting through with the knife. This motion is repeated, from each
side of the pan, until the fondant b