Tea Cakes (Traditional and Earl Grey)

Earl grey tea cakes are pictured top right and traditional flavored are on the bottom right.
Recipes for Orange Cranberry petit fours and Valentine's Sugar cookies (top and bottom right) coming soon!

    Recently I hosted a tea party at my house and my main job was to make the sweets! I wanted everything I made to be as on theme as possible for my party, so the first thing I knew I had to make were tea cakes! I will admit however, I had no idea what tea cakes were until I looked them up. Am I the only one who thought they were actual cakes? Previously, I thought tea cakes were a European cake enjoyed at tea parties. To my surprise they are nothing like that!

    Traditional tea cakes originated with the enslaved people of the South, and spread throughout America (and now the world) after the Civil War. Normally, tea cakes have a snickerdoodle-adjacent flavor with vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Although I wanted my food to stick to a more traditional high tea vibe, I couldn't help myself from making these!

    I would like to add, that as I was writing this post, I did discover that tea cakes exist in several European countries. British tea cakes are the kind I was originally thinking of, light biscuit/cake/cookies with dried fruit. However Sweden has its own kind of yeasty tea cakes, along with coconut ones in Russia and Mexico, and even chocolate covered marshmallows in Scotland. 

    Anyway, I wanted to make traditional Southern tea cakes. I also wanted to make some kind of earl grey cookie, so I thought it made sense to use my tea cake recipe and modify it for a different flavor. 

    Both recipes start off by beating softened butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy. I then added my eggs and vanilla and beat it again until it was well combined. I sifted in my flour, baking soda and powder, and spices and then mixed it by hand until there were no more flour streaks. I mixed in my dry ingredients by hand instead of with my stand mixer to avoid over mixing my dough. 

    When I was satisfied with the blend, I used a cookie scoop to scoop out balls of dough and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. I made sure to space them pretty far apart. After placing my balls on the cookie sheet I took a cup dusted with flour and smushed each cookie. I made sure to leave them pretty thick but not too thick to to bake thoroughly. I found it much easier to use the heel of my hand to flatten the cookies but the cup made the tops much flatter and they looked nicer. It was difficult to keep the cookies to stop sticking to my cup. 

    I baked my tea cakes for 11 minutes at 325 degrees F. My cookies were pretty big and my oven doesn't like to stay as hot as its supposed to so you can adjust your time. Make sure the edges of your cookie just barely change color. You don't really want them to get brown though or else they will get too dry and crumbly. 

    Although I didn't find the need to, A lot of people like to glaze their tea cakes. You can make a simple glaze by mixing 1/2 c powdered sugar with 1-2 tbsp lemon juice or 1-3 tbsp milk and 1tsp vanilla extract. Traditional tea cakes are pretty sweet though so I like them better without glaze. 

    When I finished my traditional tea cakes I got started on a second batch of earl grey flavored ones. I tweaked the recipe just a little to make the best earl grey cookie I have ever had! I started them off the same exact way as the previous ones, except I added an extra teaspoon of vanilla extract when I beat in my egg. After sifting together my flour, baking powder, and baking soda, I cut open 3 earl grey tea bags (about 1 tsp per bag if you use loose leaf tea) and added them to my dough before I mixed it until there were no more dry streaks. 

    I proceeded to finish my earl grey tea cakes the exact same way as the original and they turned out AMAZING. I was a little nervous that the tea leaves would make the cookies have a weird texture but I barely noticed the different texture of the leaves. The ones I did notice I didn't mind either. However, I will admit that these cookies have a very strong earl grey flavor. I may be a little biased because earl grey is one of my favorite teas and I am known to be partial to a heavy herby or floral flavor. If you don't like the flavor profile of earl grey as much, you can easily reduce the amount of tea you add without affecting how the cookies turn out at all. I would not add any extra though. 

    When I embarked on the journey of making a tea cake recipe, I had no idea these would turn into my new favorite cookie! These have inspired me to make tea cakes from other countries too! 

Which kind of tea cake do you guys think I should try making next? How did this recipe work for you? Leave a comment!