Big Mama’s 100-year-old tea cake recipe lasted a long time | Where NOLA eats
Some recipes have power.
My great-grandmother’s tea cake recipe has been around for over a hundred years – and I made it again this week. Of all the recipes I have, this is the one that reminds me the most. It has a light but distinctive flavor, due to the nutmeg involved.
Arrie Ellen Hawkins Henderson was born October 4, 1901. We called her Big Mama. She completed the third year of her formal education and married my great-grandfather when she was 15 years old. She lived a block from my childhood home and I spent many afternoons with her and the youngest of her 11 children, Mary Ellen.
Using her great-grandmother’s recipe that dates back more than a century, Jan Risher made old-fashioned tea cakes. Rather than using a cookie cutter, her great-grandmother simply rolled out the dough and cut the cakes into whatever shape she wanted.
Mary Ellen suffered from Down syndrome and, for the record, became an expert at making rice crispy treats. Mother and daughter shared a Dr Pepper almost every afternoon. Soft drinks were reserved for Big Mama and Mary Ellen. (Woe to you who are brave enough to remove one of the cold bottles from the fridge and open the lid.) Big Mama had other treats available for the rest of us, including caramel cakes and tarts. apples regularly. However, it was her tea cakes that we could rely on and enjoy.
A few years ago, a friend’s daughter made tea cakes using Big Mama’s recipe. With their distinct flavor, tasting these cookies was as close to time travel as I’ve ever experienced.
Our family is lucky to have the recipe because my cousins Melanie Hall Johnson and Sheila Hall Moore were wise enough to ask their grandmother to explain her signature recipes to them. Fortunately, in 1997, five years after Big Mama passed away, they took these recipes, supplemented by those from other family members, and created a family cookbook.
Using her great-grandmother’s recipe that dates back more than a century, Jan Risher made old-fashioned tea cakes.
Moore is as good a cook as I know, but she doesn’t believe her versions of Big Mama’s recipes measure up to the real thing. She went on to build a successful catering business and write an incredible cookbook, “At the Table with Friends and Moore,” which is full of her specialties, including Aunt Fannie’s Yeast Rolls, which I’ll also share.
My cousin says she now only makes high-calorie, high-butter dinner rolls for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but please note that the recipe is being kept.
I cherish the family cookbook even more than before because many of the people who contributed to it are no longer around.
Big Mama was not cute in any way. She didn’t use cookie cutters. Instead, she rolled out the dough, then used a knife to slice the cakes into any shape she liked. She was also not big on exact measurements, but would bake cakes for a crowd. Note in advance that her teacake recipe does not include an exact amount of flour.
Jan Risher gathered ingredients to make old-fashioned tea cakes from her great-grandmother’s recipe.
She typically stored the teacakes in a 5-gallon ice cream bucket, with teacakes in reserve due to the large quantity of almost cookies her recipe made. When I made her recipe this week, I halved it because I didn’t need cakes for a crowd, which was her usual baking method.
One day, I asked her where she found her famous teacake recipe. She told me that her mother, born in 1874, taught her.
I’m including the halved version of her recipe that I used to make her tea cakes this week. He still makes a small amount of teacakes, but it won’t feed a small army.
Big Mama’s cakes
1 cup of sugar
6 tablespoons buttermilk
½ cup shortening
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 egg
¼ teaspoon of salt
enough flour to make a stiff dough
1. Mix the ingredients well.
2. Spread out on a floured board.
3. Cut and place on a greased mold.
4. Bake at 350 degrees until lightly browned (about 18-22 minutes depending on oven).
Aunt Fannie’s Yeast Rolls
⅔ cup Crisco, melted
2 teaspoons of salt
1 cup lukewarm water from a pot of boiling potatoes
2 packages of yeast in ½ cup water at 105 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit
⅔ cup sugar
1 cup mashed potatoes
2 well-beaten eggs
6 cups plain flour, sifted twice
½ cup melted butter (set aside)
1. Add the first seven ingredients together.
2. Gradually add the six cups of plain flour, sifted twice.
3. Work the mixture together.
4. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for two hours in the refrigerator. To go out.
5. “Knead really well,” according to Sheila Hall Moore.
6. Roll out the dough about ¼” to ½” and cut it with a cookie cutter.
7. Individually, dip the cut dough into the melted butter and fold each into a Parker House roll style. The buns can be frozen at this point or placed in a warm place to rise for another hour.
8. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until lightly browned.
