Category: food

Teacakes

I’ve been baking. Among the things I’ve explored lately are teacakes.

The word “teacake” transports me through time.  When I was a college freshman, living a new quasi-independent life, but homesick at times, I went to the campus post office to find a package waiting for me.  

When I think of teacakes, I am transported to a memory.  A college freshman, living a new quasi-independent life, but homesick at times, I went to the campus post office to find a package waiting for me.  

The package was from Aunt Nellie.   A shoebox full of tea cakes.  They were wrapped in waxed paper, layers and layers of tea cakes.  The box was heavy – full of love.

My suite-mates and friends on the hall in the dorm were as excited as I was.  A couple of us went across the street from campus and bought a jar of peanut butter.  Part of this memory is that we had to put on dresses – because girls were not allowed to wear slacks in town.  We could wear “pant suits” (not jeans!!!)  to class, but if we left campus, we were “representing the school” and had to dress appropriately.

Back to the tea cakes.  They were fabulous!  I ate Aunt Nellie’s teacakes all my life and loved them – but these were especially memorable.  Because that box was filled with love from home ( I now realize she must have been missing me terribly in those days) and shared with loving friends who impacted my life forever!

I don’t always put peanut butter on my teacakes, but sometimes I do. And that was a critical element when the box arrived from home…I had to share them with peanut butter!

I don’t have Aunt Nellie’s recipe – when she died, my mother asked if there was anything I especially wanted from her house.  I had a long list including her “receipt book”.  The book was a spiral bound calendar from some insurance company.  But she used it to write down her recipes.  When I got it, I immediately searched out the teacake recipe.  It said; sugar, flour, butter, egg, soda.  Nothing else.

That was all the information that she needed…a reminder of what ingredients to include. That was insufficient information for me.  

The recipe I used is one from the White Lily Baking Company’s website, with a few modifications of mine.  I omit the nutmeg and add 1 teaspoon of almond extract. (Update: Since writing this, I’ve made them using lemon extract instead of almond and they are the best yet! Lemon tea cakes don’t need peanut butter or nutella – they are great on their own.)

The photo at the top has teacakes on one of Aunt Nellie’s plates.

On Valentine’s Day, I made some teacakes that were heart shaped….and we upped our game adding Nutella instead of peanut butter.  Oh, yeah!

And speaking of hearts, I’m still making stuffed ones.  I’ve added a few more red ones to the big bowl. And, I baked heart-shaped buttermilk biscuits on Valentine’s Day.

Note:  My Aunt Nellie was such an important figure in my life that I’ve written about her again and again.  She’s one of the Spinster Sisters, and she’s featured in Miss Nellie’s Country Garden.  I mention her every time I talk about geraniums and often when cooking.  Typing “Nellie” in the search box will keep you busy reading for a few minutes, at least.

Fruitcake

Turman Capote and I have a shared history.  We had loving spinster aunts as partners in fruitcake preparation.  When I taught a high-school course called the American Short Story, students’ reactions to the old-fogey ways Capote related in his A Christmas Memory were not ones of delight.  But I was thrilled to revisit my childhood.

It’s the time of year when I buy things at the grocery store that I would normally never allow past my lips.  Some candied fruit (I don’t even want to know how that is accomplished), a lot of sugar, butter, nuts, disposable baking pans.

This is a result of a lifelong habit of eating fruitcake at Christmastime.  My mother baked the dark fruitcakes for as long as I can remember.  She chopped all the fruit by hand, added nuts that either my grandmother or my Daddy had picked out of the shells, and that I had picked up from underneath the trees at home, and filled the house with a delightful smell including vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Mama made these cakes and gave them to family and friends.  Her gifts were generous, a full recipe baked in a tube cake pan.  They were huge!  Every year the search was on to find a store selling the round tins which would hold these 5-lb treasures.

Once I was grown, I became a recipient of the heavy gift in the tin.  Mama would always have ours ready to take home at Thanksgiving and we would savor the treat throughout the holidays.

Jim found a way to improve on Mama’s recipe.  We would remove her foil or waxed paper wrapping, substituting cheesecloth.  The cheesecloth would soak up the brandy Jim added and make the cake more moist.  Yes, that’s it, moist.  Once when Mama came to visit us at Christmas, I served dessert.  She remarked, “This is GOOD fruitcake.  Who made it?”  “I made it?  Are you sure?”  “Well, I don’t know.  This tastes much better than the one at my house.”  We never confessed the alteration.

Mama gave a cake to anyone who she thought would like them.  Only when I started following in her footsteps did I realize what a gift a fruitcake was.  The time, and expense, to bake these was no small matter.  A few years ago, a cousin said, “You know your Mama always made me a dark fruitcake at Christmas.  I always took it.  But I couldn’t stand those things.”  She lowers her voice when she uttered the words “dark fruitcake,” as it she were speaking of something evil.  Now that I think about it, I bet Mama realized Charlotte was unappreciative, but she was one of those people who would have been hurt had Mama not given her one.

I’ve found some shortcuts to Mama’s process.  I sometime buy nuts already shelled, and bake the concoction in small foil pans.  Once the cakes are cooled, they are ready to wrap for presentation to appreciative friends.  I know fruitcakes are the punch lines for many jokes, and I know we are all more conscious of our diets these days, but most reactions I get to the fruitcakes I share are of the “oh, I love this – it takes me back to Christmas of my childhood” type.  And when I take a plate of sliced fruitcake to social gatherings this time of year, it’s always emptied.

If your mouth is watering for a trip down memory lane, here is Mama’s recipe.

  • Mama’s Stirring Fruitcake
  • 1 lb candied cherries
  • ½ lb candied pineapple (white)
  • ½ lb candied pineapple (green)
  • 3 pts shelled nuts, coarsely chopped
  • ¼ lb raisins (? cup)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • ½ lb butter
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 cup self-rising flour
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla flavoring
  • 2 teaspoons almond flavoring
  • 2 teaspoons cake spices
  • Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at the time and beat well.  Add flour and spices and beat well.  Add fruit and nuts.  Pour into a large greased pan and place in 375 degree oven (note that she found 300 degrees in her oven to be better).  After baking 15 minutes, stir.  Do this a total of 3 times.  After 3rd time, pack in tube cake pan and bake 15 minutes longer.  Let stand in pan for 15 minutes before turning out.

My recipe notes:

I reduce the nuts to about 4 cups.

“cake spices” seem to be unavailable these days, so I use: 1 t. allspice, ½ t. nutmeg, and ½ t. cinnamon

I sometimes use 3” x 5” loaf pans to give as gifts.  This recipe fills five of those.  The plate pictured above the recipe shows one of those small loaf pans sliced.  So the whole recipe is five of those!

Note:  An internet search will yield numerous links to Truman Capote’s story, analyses of that work, and even audio files for your seasonal listening.  It’s worth the time.