********************
What is a tea cake?
********************

Although I don't know much about the history of tea cakes, I do know tea was sold in little cakes (they pressed it together to make a hard lump of tea leaves), but they wouldn't be very palatable. Edible tea cakes, better known as cookies or muffins, appear to have come about as a tasty little treat left over when the cooks tested the oven with a bit of cake batter before actually cooking the whole cake. I hope the sites below can shed a little more light on the subject if you are interested.

http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/cookies.htm

Here are some links to some tea cake recipes, but first I thought I would start off with my very favorite tea cakes, the Russian Tea Cakes!

********************
Russian Tea Cakes
********************

• 1 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/3 cup confectioners' sugar for decoration

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
   
2. In cream butter and vanilla until smooth. Combine the 6 tablespoons confectioners' sugar and flour; stir into the butter mixture until just blended. Mix in the chopped walnuts. Roll dough into 1 inch balls, and place them 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
3. Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven. When cool, roll in remaining confectioners' sugar.

*******************
Welsh Tea Cakes
*******************
http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/co/d/cod78014.htm


Old Fashioned Tea Cakes
Bread-like cookies that go with tea time.
http://members.tripod.com/cakerecipes/id32.htm

Grandmother's Tea Cakes
http://baking.about.com/library/recipes/blcoo14.htm

Chocolate Raspberry Tea Cakes
http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/nh/y/nhyb6015.htm

Yorkshire Tea Cakes
http://www.themediadrome.com/content/recipes/tea_cakes.htm

Lemon Teacakes
http://www.he-and-she.com/TeaParty/lemon.html

*********************
Hazelnut Tea Cakes
*********************
1 cup toasted* hazelnuts, very finely ground
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup cake flour
1/2 tsp. salt
6 egg whites
1/2 cup melted butter

Mix nuts, sugars, salt and flour together until well blended. Add egg whites. Add melted butter and mix well. Grease a mini-muffin pan. Using a small stainless steel scoop (you can get them from The Pampered Chef or at a kitchen store), fill cups with one scoop. Bake 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Turn oven off but don't remove cakes for another 5 minutes. Cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes before removing from pan. These can be frozen.

*To toast hazelnuts and remove skins, place the hazelnuts (I do the whole bag, which I purchase at Trader Joe's, so that I have the rest of the hazelnuts ready to use for another recipe. I store them in the freezer) on a pan with sides, bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. The skins should blister. Remove them and cool, then rub them between your palms, and the skins will flake off. There will be parts of the skin that remain, but don't worry about it. Store the extras in an airtight container in the freezer if you won't be using them right away.