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 1/2 cup butter
• 2 1/2 cup sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• flour
• nutmeg

Instructions

1. Cream together a cup and a half of butter and two cups and a half of sugar.
2. Add to five eggs beaten very light and mix well.
3. Then add a cup and a half of buttermilk with a small teaspoonful of soda dissolved in it.
4. Pour upon flour enough to make a soft dough.
5. Flavor with nutmeg.
6. Roll out a quarter-inch thick and cut with a small, round cutter.
7. Bake in a quick but not scorching oven.