Searching for Teacakes
Posted on February 2, 2014 by bob in A Gracious Plenty, GPlenty
The first two or three years of my life I lived in northwest Pike County, at the end of a small dirt road that ended three-quarters of a mile off the main dirt road. An elderly couple, Whit and Edie Ann Merritt, lived at the intersection of these roads on the main dirt road. Known as an overall good cook, Edie Ann had one specialty all the Jeffcoats appreciated – tea cakes. Her wood-fired stove produced many batches of tea cakes, but these were not dainty little confections. These were six-inch diameter, half-inch thick cookies. 
Edie Ann’s recipe was simple – flour, eggs (from her hens), butter (home churned) and sugar. They were loaded with butter, and the brown bags she put them in were always stained with grease.
We moved to the main dirt road when I was about three, a half-mile from the Merritts. One day I went missing and was found headed down the road to Edie Ann’s. When asked where I was going, I simply replied, “To Edie Ann’s for tea cakes”. When Edie Ann passed away, her recipe went with her, as I’m sure there was no “recipe.”
For years I searched for a tea cake that resembled Edie Ann’s in taste and texture. Nothing I found compared with the one from my past. I tried and tried to replicate those tea cakes, but invariably failed. My mother, also a good cook, tried too. No dice. In the 1970’s my late aunt, Mary Amy Bundrick, gave me a recipe she found and suggested I try it. I have no idea where she found it, but it was close, very close, to those of my memory.
I tweaked it here and there and finally got it to where it was almost the same – same taste, same texture. The first real test was carrying a batch to a Jeffcoat Reunion where many of my cousins were present. Like me, they had all grown up on Edie Ann’s teacakes. Their comments were unanimous – I had it down pat.
When I found my clients also have memories from their past of a grandmother, aunt, or family friend who made tea cakes, I started making tea cakes for them. (Any good business person knows the value of doing little things for their clients to let them know they’re appreciated.)
I’ve made tea cakes for clients in Montgomery, Alexander City, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, New Orleans and Puerto Rico. And now, the tradition continues, as my son Stuart is doing the same for his clients in Georgia.
Thanks, Edie Ann!
Blake’s Tea Cakes
Ingredients:
— 1 cup of butter – real butter
— 2 cups of sugar
— 4 eggs – med to large
— 4 cups of plain flour
— 1 teaspoon of baking soda
— 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cream sugar and butter together
Add eggs – one at a time – mixing each well before adding the next
Combine dry ingredients – flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar and sift together
Add flour mixture a little at a time to the batter – again mixing well after each addition. This will make a sticky dough – may clog your beaters – so be careful
Place dough on a heavily floured pastry sheet. Sift lots of flour on top of dough. Remember that the dough is very gooey and sticky. Then you need to knead the dough. Be sure to flour your hands. You will continue to knead and knead until the dough is workable and you can pinch of balls of dough easily. You will have to frequently add more flour as you knead and knead.
Grease the cookie sheets (I use Crisco)
Pinch off balls of dough about the size of golf ball, put on cookie sheet and lightly press down to about 1/2-inch. Separate the balls by about 2 to 3 inches. Note: you can make the balls smaller or larger as you see fit.
Bake about 13 minutes or so. You have to watch carefully or the bottoms will burn (probably due to all the butter). The tops should be a light brown when done, but watch the bottoms so they do not burn.
Pike County native Blake Jeffcoat lives in Montgomery. He is a Senior VP in the full-service consulting, design, construction and operations firm CH2M HILL, serving as the Americas Operations Director covering both N. America and Latin America for the firm’s Water Market.
