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Cordelia's Mother Gwen's Tea Cakes

Source of Recipe

From "Screen Doors and Sweet Tea" by Martha Hall Foose


Recipe Introduction

"Miss Cordelia, my father's great-grandmother, was very old when I was little. The oldest person I knew, she made these cookies for me when I would come to visit. My father taught me to balance them on the radiator in her dimly lit living room to get them warm and soft. I have the letters she wrote me while I was away at summer camp, when I was eight. The writing was so shaky, barely legible. I felt shy around her, and I was never a shy child. I guess I felt a kind of reverence for her. I knew she had seen and known things that were long gone�like why these cookies were called 'cakes.'"

List of Ingredients

◦ 1 teaspoon baking soda
◦ 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
◦ 2 teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
◦ About 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
◦ 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
◦ 2 cups sugar
◦ 3 large eggs


Recipe

Preheat the oven to 375� F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

Sift the baking soda, cream of tartar, nutmeg, and 2 cups of the flour together.

In an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Slowly mix in the flour mixture. Continue to add additional flour until a soft dough is formed. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough to a thickness of about � inch on a floured board, between pieces of parchment paper, or on a silicone rolling mat. Cut out 48 cookies with a 3-inch round biscuit cutter, gathering the scraps and rerolling as needed.

Place the dough rounds 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until slightly brown around the edges. Be careful not to bake them too long as the cookies will harden when cooled.

Makes 48 cookies





❧ Notes:

� For a softer, chewier cookie, substitute light brown sugar for the granulated sugar.

� Two teaspoons of poppy seeds and 1 teaspoon of grated lemon zest can be beaten into the dough with the butter and sugar.

� This recipe was originally written with no exact measurements. The ones given above were "calculated" in the 1920s by Mother Gwen's granddaughter, my great-grandmother "Momee," Susie Peaster Thompson.