Old Fashioned Tea Cakes Recipe - Dessert for Two (2024)

FAQs

What is a Tea Cake in America? ›

In the Southeastern United States, a teacake is a traditional dense large cookie, made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, milk, and flavoring. They are particularly associated with the African-American community and were originally developed as an analog of the pastries served to guests by white women when entertaining.

Although they are widely known, tea cakes have not always gone by this name. They are referred to as currant buns or spiced buns in some regions of the UK. Similar baked goods have different names in other nations.

Vergible Woods, known as Tea Cake, is the third husband of Janie Crawford, the protagonist of Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937).

Unlike both her previous husbands, Tea Cake does not judge Janie. The porch sitters, Logan, and Joe have judged Janie on her beauty, her work ethic, and her pursuit for her own identity. Tea Cake loves Janie unconditionally.

Tea cakes were initially made by plantation cooks for the guest of white slave owners. These tea cakes, which Etha Robinson describes as rustic approximations of European teacakes¹, were typically made with simple ingredients such as sugar, molasses, eggs, and vanilla when available.

Compressed tea, called tea bricks, tea cakes or tea lumps, and tea nuggets according to the shape and size, are blocks of whole or finely ground black tea, green tea, or post-fermented tea leaves that have been packed in molds and pressed into block form.

The Tunnock's Teacake is a sweet food often served with a cup of tea or coffee. It was developed by Sir Boyd Tunnock in 1956. The product consists of a small round shortbread biscuit covered with a dome of Italian meringue, a whipped egg white concoction similar to marshmallow, although somewhat lighter in texture.

A Sally Lunn is a large bun or teacake, a type of batter bread, made with a yeast dough including cream and eggs, similar to the sweet brioche breads of France. Sometimes served warm and sliced, with butter, it was first recorded in 1780 in the spa town of Bath in southwest England.

After a while in the muck, Janie begins to grow jealous of Nunkie, a chunky girl who flirts with Tea Cake in the fields. As the season goes on, Nunkie grows bolder and bolder and is always falling over Tea Cake and playfully touching him.

What was Tea Cake diagnosed with? ›

Tea Cake's health deteriorates and the rabies warp his mind, filling him with delusional, paranoid thoughts. Janie doesn't tell him about the doctor's diagnosis.

He is, in an unassuming way, a leader among the migrants on the muck. Unlike Joe, Tea Cake's self-confidence is not combined with ambition; unlike Joe, he can openly express his love for Janie. He is able to give her the dream of love that Joe Starks never understood. Even Tea Cake's death contrasts with Joe's.

But more importantly, his death forces her to make another breakthrough: she finally learns to love herself. Janie had been reliant on others her entire life. She depended on Nanny during her formative years, on Starks for sustenance, and on Tea Cake for love. She has reborn now through Tea Cake's death.

Why do other people come to Tea Cake and Janie's house at night? To hang out and listen to Tea Cake play guitar.

It is with Tea Cake that Janie discovers true love. Janie's marriage to Tea Cake makes her feel like she has been given a second chance in life to live her youth; she feels reborn.

Teacakes are often larger and flatter with a slightly harder consistency, meaning they can be enjoyed with a range of condiments, including jams and marmalades. A Hot Cross Bun is softer, with more spices baked in, so is often just enjoyed with butter.

Outside the South, the words “tea cake” mean any cake served with tea. But to Southerners, tea cakes are more than that. They are the nostalgic cookies—crispy and golden around the edges, soft and cake-like inside—that are perfect for tea, or just about anything else you choose to drink.

Originally, tea cakes weren't even cakes at all. They were, in fact, sweet buns with dried fruit, akin to a muffin. During British colonization, the tradition of afternoon tea carried on to more and more places where each culture changed the recipe to suit their needs.

Tea cakes are soft roll-out cookies that are tender, chewy and pleasantly dense. They are a cookie with a cake-like texture. The ingredients are very simple (flour, sugar, butter, milk, nutmeg, and eggs), and the gentle flavor of nutmeg is what makes these so special.