Southern Tea Cakes are more like a cookie than cake. This authentic recipe makes thick, buttery cookies topped with vanilla bean icing!
Make sure to try my Kentucky Butter Cake Cookies too!
This Is My Authentic Southern Tea Cakes Recipe!
So, I feel like I know my way around a cookie. I’ve been posting recipes here for almost 10 years…and certainly before that “cookie enthusiast” was a bullet on my resumé. Long story short, I feel like I’m fairly familiar with the cookie game. Anyhow, a few years back I was chatting with a new friend who introduced me to the Southern Tea Cake. If you are as unfamiliar as I was, they are melt in your mouth delicious, buttery, soft cookies that were completely one of a kind. They aren’t “cakey” at all (yay!). There are lots of versions out there for tea cakes…sometimes they’re glazed, sometimes they’re plain, sometimes they’re dusted with powdered sugar.
I have seen recipes where they look a lot like a sugar cookie, and sometimes they look like scones. My recipe is neither of those. It’s literal perfection…everything you want a tea cake to be. It took me a while to get this right, but it was worth every calorie.
How to Make Tea Cakes:
I used vanilla beans in mine, but feel free to use any extract in these that you would like…like almond, rum, coconut, amaretto…really it’s up to you!
And let’s just address the elephant in the room here. I used vanilla beans…which unfortunately (according to my son) makes these my cookies look like biscuits and gravy. So tea cakes in my house are now lovingly referred to as “gravy cookies”. I mean, I guess I see it. Whatever.
The dough for these is super simple, with no chill time necessary. Just roll the dough into balls and place them on a lined baking sheet. It’s very similar to a sugar cookie dough…
When they are baked they won’t spread too much, leaving them tall.
Go ahead and whip up your super simple vanilla bean glaze…
And then pour it onto each little tea cake…
See how pretty! You do this when they are warm for a thinner glaze, or cooled for a thicker glaze.
I let the glaze set up and then I couldn’t wait to dig in.
Southern Tea Cakes are some of the best treats ever…classic, but unique!
How To Store:
These can be stored at room temperature for up too 5 days, or you can freeze these for up to 30 days. Just make sure they’re stored airtight!
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Southern Tea Cakes
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 24 cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
These Southern Tea Cakes took me a LONG time to perfect, but now, they’re such an easy cookie recipe! A perfectly dense and thick, but soft, sweet, and buttery dessert. The vanilla bean glaze on top makes these extra special, and the tastiest treat!
Ingredients
Tea Cakes
- 1 cup butter, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla and beans from one vanilla bean pod (optional)
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 cups all purpose flour
Glaze
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 3–4 tablespoons milk
- 1 vanilla bean with beans scraped out
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and sugar together for 1 minute until mixed. Add in eggs and vanilla (and vanilla beans), baking powder, and salt and mix until incorporated, scraping sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Turn mixer to low and mix in the flour until the dough just comes together.
- Form the dough into 2- inch balls and place on lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are slightly golden, careful not to over-bake.
- Transfer the cookies to a wire rack while preparing your glaze
- For glaze whisk ingredients all together in a bowl. Pour directly over the tea cakes.
- Allow glaze to set before eating.
Notes
store airtight for up to 3 days
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 tea cake
- Calories: 163
- Sugar: 16.7 g
- Sodium: 81.3 mg
- Fat: 4.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 29 g
- Protein: 2.3 g
- Cholesterol: 15.6 mg
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If you are getting flatter cookies instead of little cakes, it might be because you are using baking soda instead of baking powder. I think baking soda needs acid to activate it, but I’m not sure.
Funny, when I started readying is I was thinking, “I should tell her about Ham ‘n Goodys”.. then I kept reading 🙂 We have Ham ‘n Goodys here in Knoxville, TN. Their Tea Cakes and Glazed Lemon Cookies are legendary around here. I’ve found no other Tea Cakes like them anywhere. No other cookie/cake is quite the same texture as a Tea Cake. If your recipe comes close I will be your fan for life! (the non-stalkerish type) My grandmother used to make them for her children in North Carolina so yes, definitely a Southern thing.
That glaze would be good over the Biscoff clouds. These remind me of them.
YES! Totally!
Hey there! Found this recipe months ago on Pinterest and thought these looked really good! I made them today and they came out pretty darn nicely! I didn’t use the vanilla bean because I didn’t have it, I just used extract, and for the icing I also used extract – vanilla and almond. I think everybody will enjoy these!
Unsalted or salted butter?
I used salted!
Delicious! Thanks for the recipe 🙂 I’m a lemon feen so after making your original I made them (uhhh, the next day…) substituting vanilla and the beans for lemon extract and rind, and for the icing with rind and lemon juice – turned out great; if you like lemon!
Perhaps extra spreading could be caused by different ways to measure flour? When dry ingredients such as flour and sugar are measured by weight (for home bakers, for the scale, in grams works best). This way everyone, every time would have consistent results, provided that mixing methods are consistent. Also, what kind of flour is being used? Different types and brands work up differently.
Regards.
My Grandma’s Newton made us grandkids tea cakes, but her tea cakes called for almond favoring. Here’s were roll out cookies. She would put our hands on the dough and cut around them, and we would get hand cookies. Thank you for reminding me of such nice memory!
While they sound absolutely delicious, where is the tea? It has been my experience that tea cake(s) are made with tea.
I like to eat mine with a mug of tea? Does that count? 🙂
shelly – made these for book club and they were da BOMB!!! oh my – everyone raved about them and asked for the recipe. I LOVE tea cakes (and starbucks vanilla bean scones) and these were amazing. just the right everything. I also used a smaller scoop (didn’t even have to roll them) and got about 32. (and they were still big) delicious!! thanks for doing all the hard work for us!!