Tea Cakes with Butter Cream Frosting!
Tea Cakes Plain!
The term 'tea cake' has different meanings in not just different regions of the United States, but in different parts of the world. However, in the southeastern region of America, the tea cake is a big sugar cookie with a cake like texture.
When I asked my mother if she had a good tea cake recipe, she looked at me like I was a little crazy and said "Why?". I told her that I get requests for these several times a week and I didn't really have a good recipe. She sort of sniffed ( like only Mama can do) and said, "Well, I know about tea cakes, but I wouldn't call it a recipe. It's just a plain old cake like sugar cookie that poor country folks made for something sweet when they didn't have anything else. Believe me, I have eaten my share of them back in the day." I told her that some people say they remind them of their grandmothers or great aunts or even mothers and want to make them. Of course, Mama's response was classic Mama, "They must have better memories of being poor than I do, but we can make some for them." I take it that Mama was not a tea cake fan...lol.
However, as with most baked goods, she can make a delicious tea cake. I had to tell her that even though she thinks tea cakes are ho hum, my husband and I loved them and just about fought over the last one of the ones she sent home with us. Isn't it funny how the simplest recipes are sometimes the best?
Here is what you will need:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Beat eggs and stir in oil and vanilla. Blend in sugar until the mixture thickens. Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir into the oil mixture. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Press each cookie flat with the bottom of a glass that has been dipped in sugar. If you moisten the bottom of the glass with oil before dipping in the sugar it will give you extra crunchiness.
Bake 8-10 minutes. Do not over bake. Makes approximately 3 dozen tea cakes.
You can fancy these up by frosting them, but they are good just plain also. This butter cream frosting is really good on them and can be tinted or just left white as this was.
Butter Cream Frosting
8 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup shortening ( used Crisco)
1/3 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla or almond flavoring (the almond is really good for frosting the tea cakes)
Beat powdered sugar, butter and shortening in a large bowl. Beat milk and flavoring of your choice. If it's too stiff beat in more milk a few drops at a time.
This recipe makes a huge amount of frosting so if you are just making it for the tea cake, you can cut it in half. It will keep in the refrigerator for several days though.
I really love your blog. Your recipes are awesome.
ReplyDeleteThis looks like the tea cakes my grandmother made and I adored them. She also made something she called "vinegar roll" that I would love to have a recipe for. As far as I can remember, it was mostly flour, sugar, butter and a tiny bit of vinegar. At any rate, it was to die for and I would love to have the recipe.
ReplyDeleteI believe whole "Sweet" milk, with a little vinegar(just to taste) can be substituted for buttermilk.
DeleteMy Grandmother made these but she used a whole stick of real butter.
ReplyDeletethank u i will try it soon.
ReplyDeleteI found a recipe for vinegar rolls have posted it on my fb page and tagged sweet tea and cornbread....fb name sheila sims...hope this helps...
ReplyDeleteMy Nannie made them called Tea Cake Cookies! And she also made left and rights,apple pies small single hand size fried pies so good!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing these!! I will let you know how they come out =) Your recipes are my favorite reposts.
ReplyDeletethanks so much for this recipe! yes, my grandmother and her sister, my great-aunt made THE BEST southern tea cakes in the world. i miss them so much. i also miss my grandmother and great-aunt. heehee
ReplyDeleteFYI: these came out incredible!! I was out of baking powder and had to substitute a 3:1 mixture of baking soda & cream of tartar, but they still came out great. Gone within 3 days <3 Thank you very much!! They may be a poor man's cake..but they are absolutely decadent =)
ReplyDeleteI am so glad the tea cakes brought back such good memories for everyone. We all loved them also. My mother never made these when we were growing up, but when asked she really came through. I told her she must keep making them also. :)
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother made tea cakes also,and they were great. She also made a homemade rice pudding,and I never got her recipe for it.
ReplyDeleteMy mother made rice pudding and I never got that recipe, either. Wish I had it now. It was so delicious with a little milk and raisins in it.
DeleteLove this, it brings back a lot of memories..when my grandfather was dying from cancer, all he wanted was " tea cakes "...wish I had this back a few years ago..I tried so many different recipes for them...love your site...
ReplyDeleteThis sounds good , gonna have to try them :)
ReplyDeleteThese sound good and simple to make , gonna have to try them :)
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother made the best tea cakes, she used butter and a pinch of nutmeg. My grandmother was a great cook, but, she didn't write any of her recipes down.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your wonderful recipes. I have tried many of them already and everything has been great :) I do the tea cakes substituting one cup of pumpkin and add pumpkin pie spice..frost or eat plain.
ReplyDeleteMy Googa Mama made teacakes but instead of butter she used lard. She made them in a dough board and rolled and patted them out like bisquits. They were so good!
ReplyDeleteCan you use self-rising flour? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe ones my momma made had buttermilk in them.
ReplyDeleteWe called them "Sweet Cakes",and boy were they delicious.Mom and Granny also made a sauce to pour over cake that they called "DIP".I have tried to duplicate with a recipe I found for a vanilla sauce,but it just doesn't measure up.Sweet memories.
ReplyDeleteCan you use self rising flour instead of all purpose and the baking soda salt
ReplyDeleteLove your blog.Have been looking for awhile for recipe.Love to cook sweets like my mother did. Thankyousomuch.
ReplyDeleteI am from Mississippi. I have tried several of your recipes (all great) and I plan on trying these tea cakes, but the tea cakes I remember as a child that my great-aunt, Aunt Clara, made were a hard tea cake...not at all a cake-like sugar cookie, and they were delicious! Have you ever come across a recipe that makes them like that?
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother's were also hard tea cakes that got softer a day or so later, if they lasted that long. I loved them, but I don't have to recipe either would love to find someone who does have it..
DeleteMy grandmother and mother used lard instead of oil
ReplyDeleteI hope these are like the ones my Mother and Grandmother used to make. They kept very well in the cookie jar - the longer you kept them, the better they tasted. Of course, they never lasted very long! I have to make these and try them on the grands!
ReplyDeletefor harder tea cakes just roll in more flour and bake a little longer. for rice pudding and pillow-y tea cakes try southernplate.com. both of these old fashioned sites are wonderful! !
ReplyDeleteMy Mother made tea cakes with self rising flour but she did not write the recipe down.My sister and I have been trying to find a good recipe thinks.My mothers were the best.We loved them.
ReplyDeletemy ex mother in law made tea cakes and I for one loved them. They were slightly sweet, plain and simple. Thanks for sharing the recipe. Your Mom sounds like my Bigmama (she wasn't big at all) and she didn't care for antiques, she said she grew up with that stuff and preferred more modern furniture.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother made tea cakes too. She used butter or lard. She rolled her cookies out and cut them with a cookie cutter. Often she added some lemon zest or lemon juice to hers. She also never wrote the recipe down. Thanks for the good memories.
ReplyDeleteI managed to get an old teacake recipe from a lady years ago it calls for syrup makes a delicious teacake she really did not go by a recipe, per say, but wrote down for me what she did
ReplyDeleteI have an old recipe given to me years ago by an older lady. She really did not follow a recipe per say, but wrote down how she made them using cane syrup. They make large cookies and are delicious!
ReplyDeleteI FINALLY FOUND THE RECIPE. One of the things I regret it not getting my Mom's tea cake recipes. We didn't have much growing up but whenever she made these I thought they were the best. I am so happy for this recipe. It brings back so many memories. THANKS!!!
ReplyDeleteMy Mom made the best tea cakes. They had a cake-like texture and she rolled them out. I think she also put a pinch of nutmeg. This recipe is the closest I have seen to hers. The only thing is that I don't think she used vegetable oil -- it would have been lard or butter. I am going to try them and see. I wish I had gotten her recipe before she died. I used to love when she would make them.
ReplyDeleteMy mama couldn't afford to buy me & siblings sweets so that was what we got after school everyday we loved them. Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteAfter school my grandmother would give us a biscuit that we would stick our finger down into the side of and pour some cane syrup into the hole. Oh My, It makes me hungry just to think of those big ole biscuits---cold but so good!
DeleteSo easy to make and taste wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThis looks wonderful. Growing up in Texas and driving to Louisiana to see my Grandmother, we always looked forward to her teacakes, but hers were more of a thin crisp shortbread. Her recipe called for buttermilk.
ReplyDeleteI realize that everyone thinks their Mama made the best but my mama was told by soooo many great southern cooks that hers were the best. I have to agree! Her recipe was her mother's and grandmother's recipe. They used butter, buttermilk, rolled dough out and cut out cookies just thick enough. Soft and wonderful. Could be iced for holidays. She iced with thin powdered sugar and milk icing tinted for occasion. She passed away after a couple of years in a alzheimers facility. I haven't had the emotional strength to try to make them. I used to get pretty close to hers but never as good! Truly our family's favorite cookie but everything that lady cooked and baked was heaven! Her nickname from a little girl was Sugarbabe! How appropriate!!! I love and miss you Mama!
ReplyDeleteMy Mewmaw made a chocolate dessert from day-old biscuits (NOT the canned ones) cocoa, sugar, and eggs. (Maybe more stuff, I just don't remember) The texture somewhat reminds me of Impossible Pies. Do you have any such recipe? I would love to have it if you do.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother made them, but she had a slight hint of nutmeg in hers, made them really good! I'm 80, so her recipe is really old! It even calls for a "quart" of flour! I guess that's how they measured things back then, no measuring cups!
ReplyDeleteYum. They're also good with lemon flavoring. Add some frosting with a bit of lemon zest is quite tasty.
ReplyDelete