Tea Cake Recipe from Our Read Aloud

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Gather these ingredients (Mammaw always used these brands, but you can substitute your own brands):

• 2 sticks of Blue Bonnet Margarine
• 3-1/2 cups of Martha White self-rising flour
• 2 cups of Dixie Crystal Sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 3 teaspoons of vanilla flavoring

Blend margarine and sugar until creamy. Beat eggs and blend. Add vanilla, then flour, and blend. (You can blend the ingredients with a potato masher, then stir with a long wooden spoon.) Gather the mixture into a loose ball and sprinkle lightly with flour.

Lightly flour the surface you’ll use for rolling, then roll out the dough.

Next remove about half of the dough onto the cutting surface and roll it out with a rolling pin to a thickness of about 1/4 inch. Cut circles in the dough with a tea cup, glass, or cookie cutter about 2-3 inches in diameter. 

(Dip the rim of the cup in flour between cuttings to prevent the dough from sticking.)

Place the circles on a baking sheet that has been lightly buttered or use a nonstick baking sheet. Set the cookies about 1 inch apart on all sides. Sprinkle sugar lightly over each cookie.

Repeat for the second half of the dough. (Refrigerate the dough if it will sit for more than ten minutes. Chilled dough is easier to roll out and cut.) This recipe should produce a batch of about 40 teacakes.

Place the cookies in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes. The cookies are done when they are lightly browned. Remove them from the oven and let them cool a little before you lift them off the baking sheet to eat them.

I hope you make Teacakes with someone you love very much. That’s when they taste the very best.

FromSaturdays and Teacakes, written by Lester L. Laminack and illustrated by Chris Soentpiet