Dessert item served with tea
Teacake
A toasted English teacake (right) shown with a
mocha
|
Type
| Sweet roll
|
---|
Main ingredients
| Flour
|
---|
A
teacake
in England is generally a light yeast-based
sweet bun
containing dried fruit, typically served toasted and buttered.
[1]
In the U.S.
teacakes
can be cookies or small cakes. In Sweden, they are soft, round, flat wheat breads made with milk and a little sugar, and used to make buttered ham or cheese sandwiches. In India and Australia, a teacake is more like a
butter cake
.
Tea
refers to the popular beverage to which these baked goods are an accompaniment.
Regional variations
[
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England
[
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]
In most of England, a teacake is a light, sweet,
yeast
-based
bun
containing dried fruits, most usually
currants
,
sultanas
or
peel
. It is typically split, toasted, buttered, and served with
tea
. It is flat and circular, with a smooth brown upper surface and a somewhat lighter underside. Although most people refer to a teacake as a cake containing fruit, in East
Lancashire
, certain areas of
Yorkshire
and
Cumbria
the name currant teacake is used to distinguish fruited "cakes" from plain bread rolls.
In West Yorkshire, a large plain white or brown bread roll 9 inches or 225 mm diameter is often also called a teacake and is used to make very large
sandwiches
. Many cafes sell these for breakfast or midmorning snacks.
Like
Chelsea buns
,
Yorkshire puddings
and
Bath buns
before them Yorkshire tea cakes lost their specific attachment to a geographical English location. While the aforementioned were no longer only associated with specific places before the 1800s, the same happened to Yorkshire tea cakes during the
Victorian era
. It became defined as a traditional English food.
[2]
In
Kent
, the teacake is known as a "huffkin", which is often flavoured with
hops
, especially at the time of harvesting hops in September. In Sussex, a luxurious version of the teacake with added aromatics such as
nutmeg
,
cinnamon
and
rose water
is still sometimes made and called a
manchet
or Lady Arundel's Manchet.
In East
Lancashire
, the former
West Riding of Yorkshire
, and
Cumbria
a teacake is a round bread roll which is cut in half to make sandwiches. They do not usually contain any sort of dried fruit. They can be made with either white, brown, wholemeal, or Granary flour (a brand of flour produced by
Hovis
, made by
malting
wheat, crushing the grains, roasting them, and then mixing them with brown flour).
[3]
Sweden and Finland
[
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]
In
Sweden
, the word for teacake (
tekaka
)
[4]
refers to a sweetened wheat
yeast bread
. In
Finland
there is a similar dish called
teeleipa
.
United States
[
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]
In the Southeastern United States, a teacake is a traditional dense large
cookie
, made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, milk, and flavoring.
[5]
They are particularly associated with the African-American community and were originally developed as an analog of the pastries served to guests by white women when entertaining.
[6]
Australia/India
[
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]
In Australia and
India
, a teacake is typically a
butter cake
, usually ready to serve warm from the oven in less than 30 minutes. Ingredients typically consist of flour, eggs, butter, cinnamon and sugar. It is traditionally served warm as an accompaniment to tea. Australian teacakes are sprinkled with cinnamon and fine (caster) sugar, and are usually served warm from the oven with additional butter.
[7]
[8]
See also
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References
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External links
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]