One of the best treats on the face of the earth is Southern Tea Cakes. Its one of the few things I know how to make myself. My grandmother made them and my mother makes them and now I make them. I generally only make them around Christmas time. They are what we make for Christmas cookies.

I remember as a child eating them at my grandmother’s house. She made them the old fashioned way in a wooden bowl and mixing the dough by hand. My mother did too except that over time she graduated to plastic bowls and a hand held electric mixer. I do believe she always had a Hamilton Beach® Mixer all those years. In fact, I believe she’s still got that same mixer.

Tea cakes are heavenly. They aren’t too sweet, they are just right. They are moist and tasty and nothing is better than one that is warm right out of the oven. At Christmas I cook a bunch and in years past my kids and I would decorate them for Christmas cookies. We made some pretty creative Christmas tea cakes if I do say so myself!

When you are mixing the ingredients together you should add the flour in a little at a time so that it doesn’t end up with clumps of flour in it. That takes a balancing act if you are using a hand held mixer. I’ve made a major mess with flour trying to do that more than once. I can imagine how much easier, and less messy, making tea cakes would be with a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer. The Eclectrics® Mixer would free up your hands to mix in the flour without having to balance and hand held mixer at the same time. In addition, it has twelve settings so that it has more control. The stainless steel bowl has a handle so that its easy to … well … handle. It has several different mixing elements like a flat beater, dough book and wire whisk. It also has a two piece pouring spout and splatter shield. Considering all the times that I have splattered the whatever I’m mixing in a mixing bowl all over the wall, that splatter shield sounds very appealing.

Here’s the Tea Cake recipe if you’d like to try it.

1 cup shortening
2 eggs
1-teaspoon vanilla
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
3 cups self-rising flour

Mix all ingredients together. Add enough flour to make a stiff dough. Roll out thin. Cut with cookie cutter and put on a cookie sheet. Bake at 400 for 5-6 minutes.

Most of all, have fun!