I was in for a big surprise when Stefani came on the podcast and shared her Granny Octavia's old fashioned Southern tea cakes with us! I was picturing light, airy, delicate little miniature cakes. So when I started reading the instructions and got to "roll out the dough", I was shocked! Looking back at the ingredients a little more closely, I notice the flour to butter ratio was 1.5 cups to 1 stick - not so cake-like at all! Tea cakes are, according to Stefani, a marriage between cakes and cookies, with just a little bit of biscuit thrown in, if you drop the batter onto a pan, rather than rolling and cutting it.
However you categorize them, this recipe for tea cakes results in a soft, crumbly, elegant texture that can carry any flavor you choose. Stefani's Granny Octavia usually went for the most simple and refined - plain vanilla. We chose to add in some of Stefani's ideas - orange zest in one batch and cardamom in another. Truthfully, with a basic recipe like this, you simply can't go wrong!
[spacer height="20px"]
Episodes Related to this Old Fashioned Southern Tea Cakes Recipe
Follow The Storied Recipe in Your Favorite Player
Old Fashioned Southern Tea Cakes Recipe
Difficulty: Easy8
servings1
hour10
minutes1
hour10
minutesSouthern Tea Cakes are soft, buttery, and crumbly – much more cookie than cake. This recipe is basic and endlessly adaptable.
Keep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
- Southern Tea Cakes
1 1 stick butter, softened
1 tablespoon 1 shortening (this is optional but lends to the texture)
½ cup ½ +1 tablespoon granulated sugar (traditionally these are not as sweet as cookies, however, if you want it a little sweeter you can bump up to ¾ cup
2 teaspoons 2 vanilla or scrape a whole vanilla bean (I like using vanilla bean and seeing the little flecks)
1 large 1 egg, room temperature
1 ½ cups 1 ½ + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon 1 baking powder
pinch salt
2 tablespoons 2 buttermilk
- Add ins
Traditional tea cakes are super simple but you can add in other flavors
Bourbon, Rum, almond extract: swap out ½ teaspoon vanilla
Lemon or orange: 1tablespoon lemon zest and swap out ½ teaspoon vanilla for ½ teaspoon lemon juice
Cardamom: ⅛ teaspoon
Pecans or other nuts: ½ cup
Molasses: swap 1 tablespoon of sugar for 1 tablespoon molasses
Directions
- In a bowl sift flour, baking powder, salt, and set to the side. Using a standup or hand mixer, cream butter and shortening until fluffy. Mix in sugar until combined. Add in vanilla and egg until combined. Add in half flour mixture and mix a few seconds, scrape down sides. Add in buttermilk and remainder of flour mixture and mix until combined. You don’t want to over-mix, it should only take a seconds to combine.
- Turn out dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Dough will be sticky. Form dough into a 2 inch disk, wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour or freeze for 30 minutes. You want your dough to be very cold to prevent spreading.
- Preheat oven to 325 and line baking sheet.
- Remove from the refrigerator and roll dough until about ¼ inch thick. I don’t like to flour my surface or rolling pin because I think it dries out the dough. Try rolling on parchment paper. Cut dough into desired shape. I use a large biscuit cutter.
- Place tea cakes on baking sheet and bake 9-11 minutes. Let cool on sheet 1-2 minutes then finish cooling on a rack. Tea cakes don’t rise they’ll look about the same as when you put them in the oven. Also, the color stays a bit the same, you know they’re done when the edges/bottoms turn slightly golden.
Notes
- Make sure to listen to Stefani on The Storied Recipe Podcast, Granny Octavia’s Tea Cakes while you make her Tea Cakes recipe!
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @thestoriedrecipe.podcast on Instagram and hashtag it #thestoriedrecipe
Like this recipe?
Follow us @thestoriedrecipe on Pinterest
Would love to hear from you!