On Sunday afternoon, September 28, 2025, the Calhoun County Museum hosted an event to celebrate a historic Southern dessert - the humble tea cake. A traditional part of Southern entertainment that likely originated during the era of slavery, tea cakes are a generational treat for many families, along with being delicious in all their many forms. These small, sometimes crunchy, sometimes cake-like round cookies were created in imitation of English biscuits or scones often served with tea, and can be made with lard, sorghum, molasses, and a variety of other ingredients. In order to get the full effect of the tea cakes, they were served with a variety of hot teas they could be dipped in as well as a delicious punch (thanks to Mrs. Judy Hearnsberger for that alwaysdelicious addition!). If your family has a traditional tea cake recipe or you have a cookbook with a favorite that you could send us a picture of, we’d love it!
Attendees were treated to at least 8 different tea cake recipes, including a chocolate version and one with lemon icing. Beautiful flowers were donated to the event by Becca’s Beyond Compare, which were given away as door prizes to three lucky attendees. The Museum hopes to host another such event in the future; next time, the focus may be on finger sandwiches or another type of Southern snack traditionally served with tea. Keep an eye out for details on that, and please make plans to attend and share your family’s culinary heritage with us! The Museum is collecting local cookbooks for our collection; if you or anyone you know has more than one copy of any local cookbook from Calhoun County, we would love to make a copy or add it to our collection. Please contact us for more information.
