Old Fashion Tea Cakes and Memories

Evening everyone.  Hope you all have had a great day whether you were working outside the home or doing daily chores within your cozy abode.  I started out kinda slow, but the day ended rather productively. Actually I played house. Moved things around a little, some found their way right back to where I started but some did find a new spot to call home. 

I think I inherited my knack for playing house from my Grandmother.  She loved to change furniture around, make new flower arrangements and loved to cook SWEETS.  Last night after supper I went to the kitchen and made Mr. P. a batch of Old Fashioned Tea Cakes.  The whole time I was baking them I thought of the memories of watching my Grandmother ( I called her Mama) make these cookies.  Her method was so much harder than the recipe I use today. 

This is the actual dough bowl, sifter,rolling pin and the cloth she used  as a pastry cloth when making the best cookies a little girl could ask for.  I would stand on an old metal stool and watch, and wonder when I would get that first warm cookie.

She used an old snuff glass (a small drinking glass) to cut out the tea cakes  after she had rolled them out.  Don't leave me yet.  My version is so simple.

Sometime we take things for granted.  I guess I thought "Mama" would be around forever.  Although she lived to be 95, I never got her to give me the recipe she had planted in her mind.  I tried for years all kind of recipes, but they were never like my grandmother;s

Several years ago, my sister-in-law brought me a plate of tea cakes as a hostess gift when I had them over for Christmas.  I almost bit my tongue.  Those were the closest to "Manma's " tea cakes .  I was so excited when she shared the recipe with me.  Thanks Maudie.  Can't begin to tell you how many times I have made these since.

If you've never had a tea cake, well they are a plain cookie.  Kinda like a pound cake but in cookie form.

Will show you pictures and then share the recipe with you.

The recipe says to drop by spoonfuls onto baking sheet. I am a ball person, so I make mine into balls

Yes, this is my old faithful cookie sheet I have had for 37 years.  Looks bad, but makes the best cookies. After I get the balls on sheet, I dip a fork in flour and score the tops.

And then you pop them in the oven and anxiously wait, but it only takes a few minutes.  When I was little and "Mama" got the cookies in the oven , she would hold me in her lap and sing to me.  Remember just like yesterday.  Even remember the song she would sing.

Not the prettiest cookies in the world, but the taste and oh the memories they bring back to me. You do not want the cookie to brown.  Just barely turn on the edges.  I test mine by lifting a cookie with the metal spatula and make sure the bottom is golden . It should look like this

Old Fashioned Tea Cakes

2 eggs

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla flavoring

3/4 cup of sugar

2 cups self rising flour

With electric mixer beat eggs until blended.  Add oil and vanilla

Sift dry ingredients together and add to above mixture.

Mix until well blended.

Drop by teaspoons  (or if you perfer roll into balls ) onto baking sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees checking often so as not to burn.

Let cool on wire racks.

If you had a grandma who made tea cakes when you were a child or if you would just like to start a new tradition, Then I hope you will enjoy this recipe.  Make them with your grandchildren and make a memory of your own.

Welcome to my new followers.  Hope you enjoy visiting and I love you stopping by.  Until next time.