SOUTHERN TEA CAKE RECIPE RECIPES

Fluffy, buttery, and shockingly tender, old fashioned tea cakes are more akin to a crossover between a biscuit and a cookie than they are to a cake. Like many of our oldest recipes, tea cakes were created out of scarcity—both in ingredients and time. Rather than the time consuming yeasted breads made for holidays or the intricate (and expensive) pastries made for celebrations like weddings and birthdays, tea cakes were more of an everyday treat to be enjoyed with a cup of tea. But seventy years ago, treats regularly baked to stock the cupboard for a surprise visit had to be made without requiring a great deal of time and without depleting the pantry of its resources. The tea cake took very little time to make and called for ingredients already laying around the kitchens of our great grandparents.While they may look like cookies, they certainly don't taste like them. Tea cakes contain much less sugar than a conventional cookie, and the main liquid ingredient is buttermilk, giving a slightly savory edge to an already mildly sweet pastry. At their most basic, tea cakes are simply flour and sugar combined with butter and buttermilk. Flavors like vanilla, cinnamon, or lemon are regularly used to add a touch of flair to the otherwise simple cakes. Our recipe calls for the zest of one lemon, adding just the right hint of citrus to the buttery tea cake.

Provided by Micah A Leal

Total Time 1 hours 35 minutes

Yield 12 tea cakes

Number Of Ingredients 8

• Ingredients

I received this recipe from an old Southern cook, a copy of a copy of a typed-up sheet from long ago, annotated with her notes (which included the word oleo instead of margarine). I've never seen another chocolate cake recipe like it, which instructs the cook to heat part of the cake batter on the stove, and pour the cooked icing over a hot cake. The result is a wonderfully rich (yet surprisingly light) chocolate sheet cake topped with a cooked chocolate and pecan frosting. This cake has an incredible homemade taste, yet is foolproof! Will make you forget Duncan Hines®!

Provided by Leslie41

Categories     Pecan Desserts

Total Time 55 minutes

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Yield 1 9x13-inch sheet cake

Number Of Ingredients 17

• Ingredients

Nutrition Facts : Calories 324.8 calories, CarbohydrateContent 45.1 g, CholesterolContent 24.3 mg, FatContent 15.9 g, FiberContent 1.2 g, ProteinContent 2.6 g, SaturatedFatContent 4.7 g, SodiumContent 185 mg, SugarContent 35.7 g