Tea Cakes

Grandma's favorite bakery for tea cakes is going out of business. For her birthday, I thought I would make some for her.

I'd never heard of tea cakes and went searching. During my search I came across The Soul Food Pot website which stated that tea cakes database back to the 1600s and are an 'integral part of African-American food culture'. There is a book all about them, The Tea Cake Roundup. Really?!  I had no idea.

The "top" recipes for me were:

• https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/tea-cakes/
• for this one would need to make own self-rising flour: https://southernfoodandfun.com/how-to-make-tea-cakes/#wprm-recipe-container-105609
• This one has nutmeg: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/25766/grandmas-old-fashioned-tea-cakes/
• This one has lemon and buttermilk: https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/tea-cake
• https://thesoulfoodpot.com/tea-cake-recipe/

I ended up trying the last one from Southern Living, largely because it had lemon and only made a dozen. The description says that the tea cakes are a cross between a biscuit and a cookie.  That's exactly how they came out. Not very sweet, which is good for pairing with a steaming mug of tea. Several variations include adding Almond Extract, nutmeg, brown sugar instead of granulated sugar, and more.

I want to try the other variations but for now, I have a few cookies from grandma to taste and let me know how close (or not so close) they are to those she loves.