Culinary Arts would like to take this opportunity to welcome Vivan Escaravage, our latest contributor. This is her first piece:


Tea Cakes by Vivian Escaravage

An image of a tea cake often brings thoughts of afternoon tea and a serving of a flat semi-sweet cookie or biscuit. The tea cake is often depicted as a British teatime pastry, typically served with Earl Grey tea.


Though in actuality tea cakes are defined differently in every country, the Irish Tea Cakes, Mexican Tea Cakes, Italian Tea Cakes, Welsh Tea Cakes are all quite diverse in form and taste.


The Downey's Restaurant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for example, sells an Irish Whiskey Tea cake created from own recipes and soaked with the finest liquors. The Irish Tea Cake is a glazed coffeecake made for the Christmas Holiday and St. Patrick's Day, but also available for any day of the year.


Throughout history, the tea cake has varied in size, shape and appearance and varies depending on the occasion.


During the Regency period, servants greeted guests with ginger biscuit shaped tea cakes as a warm welcome. Even tradition has followed the tea cake into the present time from the French Revolution to the Civil War. The tea cake has made its appearance at celebrations, parties, restaurants, and weddings.

Follow up:

Leah Stewart is the innkeeper/pastry chef of the Gallery House Bed and Breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky who creates an abundance tea cakes-petit fours, battenburgs,and tweed cakes in a variety of colors and pastry design. She graduated from summa cum laude from the National Center for Hospitality Studies of Sullivan College with a degree in Baking and Pastry


Arts.

"Tea cakes are time consuming fiddley little things. They set me apart from the competition. Almost no one in town will do them."

Leah likes the challenge of taking an oridinary tea cake and creating a work of art. She always has her paintbrush and canvas of colors ready to create a whole new tea cake.

"A way of making tea cakes practical is a variation of a recipe thats made its way around every pastry kitchen and bakery."

Individual tea cakes take a long time to make and decorate, Leah has an easier technique of making petit fours. They are less of an intrusion in a baking schedule. First a good dense cake such as a firm white cake or pound cake is needed, use an extra small square pan.


Brush the pan with thinned corn syrup or warmed apricot then top with mazipan. Cut into squares no bigger than 2" square wrap it tightly and freeze. When the petit fours are needed, mix up the poured fondant and tint if desired then skewer the cake, still frozen. Dip into the poured fondant, the fondant adheres to the cold cake, giving a smooth finish. Then put the skewer with the cake still attached through an opening of a cooling grid. The cake remains on the cooling grid to dry. This is much easier than pouring "poured fondant."


Leah decorates the petit fonts to be an eye catching product with shape and color. The easier technique Leah created increases the practicality in the professional kitchen, as generally speaking, tea cakes aren't generally made in the professional kitchen.

"I provided a technique thats easier, quieter and looks good. A recipe that uses ingredients commonly found. This technique gives practicality."

says Leah Stewart.


Tweed cakes are a variation of an old mountain spice recipe that everyone in Kentucky uses.
The bakery recipe calls for dried baked goods generally breads. Leah modified the original recipe into a new recipe made with leftover cake tops and cake crumbs. One night, she had only chocolate and white cake crumbs, she added the crumbs to the cakes and baked them.


People said they looked unusual and very pretty like a tweed. Tweed cakes were a big hit at the Gallery Inn Bed and Breakfast, the taste was described as heavenly. The icing on the tweed cakes is a dollop of ganache on the top. They are not immersed in icing as are the petit fours. Leah liked the way they look so she served them at a dessert party and everyone loved them. When people started asking for the recipe, it was tricky explaining that they were made from "leftovers."


Leah continues to experiment with different flavored cake crumbs. She is a true artist in the kitchen with her palette of colors and her paintbrush ready at all times.


Biscottis are the quintessential Italian tea cakes popular in Italy. Gina Glass is the innkeeper and Italian chef of the Abella Garden Inn Bed and Breakfast in Arroyo Grande, Calfornia. She makes dfferent types of biscottis in her kitchen at the inn.

A biscotti is a hard like cookie/biscuit orginially from Italy. Gina Glass grew up in small Southern Italy town, Calobria with a farm and fresh vegetables and fruits. She would spend the day cooking, playing music, and surrounded by family members.

"I am from a very traditional, old fashioned family. I learned how to cook sauces cookies and cakes from scratch with the freshest ingredients. Everything was prepared with the freshest ingredients."

says Gina Glass.


The biscottis are made fresh every morning with real butter, real eggs, and real sugar. Gina has a passion for food and life and she puts her whole heart and soul into her cooking.

"I make one of my biscottis with homemade jams on top and I shape the dough into flat little cakes. My guests like the semi-sweet taste of my biscottis."

says Gina Glass.


Biscottis are made on no telefon pans only stainless steel. Gina believes in using glassware, cast iron skillet, and stainless steel for her creations.

"I cook with this type of cookware because it keeps people healthy. Telefon goes into the system and spreads through the body.
Women use to cook with cast iron skillets and women weren't anemic in those days. I know my biscottis don't have any foreign elements except natural ingredients which brings out the tastes."

Gina takes pride in her Italian ways of cooking and it shows in everything she makes for her guests.


Innkeeper/Chef Lesley Marquis uses her Grandmother's Russian Tea Cake original recipe at the Rose Country Inn Bed and Breakfast in New Hampshire. The Cherry Nut Tea Cakes recipe was found on the internet a few years ago, Lesley has been making it ever since. She has made a few changes to the recipe and Lesley has kept the Russian Tea Cakes recipe the same. The recipes are a tradition at the inn, Lesley serves the Russian Tea Cakes and the Cherry Nut Tea Cakes for the "Inn to Inn" Christmas and all the Mother/Daughter weekends. Lesley Marquis started cooking after she and her husband bought the inn.


Once upon a time, the tea cake existed only in the country they came from. Nowadays, chefs are innovative and inventive about their work in the kitchen. It doesn't matter where a tea cake recipe originated from, tea cakes gracing the kitchens of chefs are uniquely created and uniquely recreated with a little bit of tradition mixed in.



Contributed by Vivian Escaravage