Saturdate with Southern Plate. {Mama Reed's tea cakes}

In case you don't know what Saturdate with Southern Plate is, you can check it out here.


This week I made Tea Cakes. I loOoOve tea cakes. They are absolutely my favorite cookie...cake...whatever you want to call them (just don't call them sugar cookies). However, these cookies did not turn out like I thought they would. They weren't bad, but they just didn't taste like I thought they should. Here's some reasons why.

1. The directions said to roll the dough out thin. I thought I had done that, but it was not thin enough.

2. The directions included an icing recipe. I decided not to make the icing. I thought tea cakes didn't need it. Icing would have really complimented these tea cakes.

3. The biggest reason is, these tea cakes weren't Mrs. Hooper tea cakes. Mrs. Hooper is a lady in my church in Georgia. For the past several years, she has made me tea cakes on my birthday and every major holiday (I love being a preacher's kid!). Now, when I visit, she always has tea cakes ready for me. I looooove her tea cakes. Unfortunately, so does my husband. When we first got married, he didn't know how good they were, and he's not a big sweet eater anyway. When I got my Mrs. Hooper tea cakes, they were all mine. All mine! However, that lasted only for a little bit, and now he's as big of a fan as I am, and I am forced to share.

Christy Jordan talks in the cookbook about how no one will ever cook as good as your momma. Well, I think that's how I feel about tea cakes. I have picked my favorite, and all others just taste...different.

When I moved to Maryland, Mrs. Hooper gave me her tea cake recipe. (She's just that nice!) Today I will share it with you.

{Mrs. Hooper's tea cakes}

3 1/2 cups of self rising flour
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of Crisco
1 stick of margarine
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Normally you would roll the dough out, cut cookies, and bake, but Mrs. Hooper's does it slightly differently. In her recipe, she says to make a small ball. She even drew how big the ball should be for me. She must know me. It's about the size of a quarter. She then places the ball on the cookie sheet and flattens them with a measuring cup. She didn't say how long to cook them, but I would say 10 minutes, or until brown. Enjoy!!!