Tea Cakes (Betsy Vaughn)

History

This is one of two tea cake recipes in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913), and the book credits it by name: "Tea Cakes: (Betsy Vaughn.)" A cup and a half of butter is creamed with two and a half cups of sugar and added to five eggs beaten very light; a cup and a half of buttermilk with a small teaspoonful of soda dissolved in it follows, poured onto flour enough to make a soft dough. It is flavoured with nutmeg, rolled a quarter-inch thick and cut with a small round cutter.

The companion recipe, credited to M. L. Williams, is a different formula altogether — five eggs, five cups of sugar, lard rather than butter, sour milk, rolled twice as thick. Printing both under their contributors' names is the book at its best: two named women's versions of the same thing, preserved as distinct.

The historical record does not document a specific earlier origin for this particular recipe.

That the book names its white contributors is worth holding alongside what it does not do: the Black cook who taught the author her kitchen is credited with five recipes and never named, appearing only by a household role-title. Food historians have documented this as a convention of early-twentieth-century Southern cookbooks.

Ingredients

• 1.5 cup butter
• 2.5 cup sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1.5 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• flour
• nutmeg

Instructions

1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the five eggs beaten very light and mix well. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk, then add this mixture to the creamed ingredients. Pour in flour enough to make a soft dough and flavor with nutmeg. Roll out the dough a quarter-inch thick, cut with a small, round cutter, and bake in a quick but not scorching oven.