Today I am sharing a tea cake recipe that my heroine, Juleah Fallows Braxton, would have made in the Colonial period. 

Allow me first to give you a snippet from my novel 'Surrender the Wind', an inspirational historical romance set in the Colonial era. 

Juleah’s reflection appeared in the window glass. Unlike a mirror, it was a translucent image, her eyes and face pale, her hair ghostly soft about her face. She saw one person, one woman, instead of a couple. How incomplete she seemed without Seth beside her.

Her eyes filled and blurred the reflection before her. The horse chestnuts trees her father had planted on the hilltop beyond the garden came into view. Lances of sunlight poured between them, made the grass luminescent, matched the color of the lichen in the pond. 

“I wish I could paint that scene,” she whispered, leaning her head across her arm. “But I shall never excel at watercolors.”

Juleah's Colonial Tea Cakes

1 cup of butter, 1 cup of sugar, 3 eggs, and 4 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt. Cream butter and sugar together until creamy. Add slightly beaten eggs and remaining ingredients. Roll on floured board and cut. Sprinkle with sugar and bake at 400 for 12 minutes. Serve to guests, especially ladies, with good English tea and dusted with powdered sugar. 

Visit my website and read about Surrender the Wind, and a new series, The Daughters of the Potomac, to be released beginning February 1

http://ritagerlach.blogspot.com/