Outdoor Odyssey

On August 12, I posted the story, “The Magical Wood Stove” about My Grand Mother, Ella Bryan’s, cooking ability on her old wood stove. Her Tea Cakes were wonderful and were my favorites, but I bemoaned the fact that her recipe for them was lost, leaving me only memories of those treats.

Last week while I was in Manassas, Va. playing in a National Championship, Senior Softball Tournament, I received an e-mail from one of my Cousins, and attached was Grandma Bryan’s recipe for her Tea Cakes. It had been stashed away with one of my Aunts, Myree (Bryan) Turner’s, other recipes and my post had jogged my cousin’s memory as to its whereabouts.

The Tea Cakes were so good, I will now make this cherished recipe available to my readers.

Grandma Bryan’s Tea Cakes

Sift together,
3 cups flour
3 TSP baking powder
1-1/2 cups sugar
a pinch of salt.

Then, with a pastry blender, cut in 1 “scant” cup of Crisco. I have been told that a “scant” cup, means not packed down.

Add 3 eggs and
Either 1 tsp vanilla or lemon flavoring, then mix well.

Use rolling pin and roll dough to approx. ½” thickness.

Take
a large glass, iced tea size, and flour the rim, then cut raw cookies
out of the dough and place on a greased cookie sheet. Keep the scraps
and re-roll and re cut. Your last cookie may be funny looking.

Cook at 350 deg. Until done, light brown.

Sprinkle sugar on top,

Then eat and enjoy!

Before WW II, when I was a young boy, my Dad made sure that I spent a lot of time with his family on their farm outside of Marlin, in Falls County, Texas. At that time, rural farmers and ranchers in Texas did not have electricity, propane or butane. The Rural Electrification Agency didn’t arrive in Falls County until after the war, WW II.

Peyton and Ella Bryan on their wedding day in 1895.

My Grandmother, Ella Victoria Bennicker, 1876 – 1963, married my Grandfather, Peyton James Bryan, 1867 – 1937, on May 19, 1895 and raised their family of 4 boys and 5 girls in Falls County, Texas and she never had a gas stove or electric lights until 1946, well after the kids were grown and moved out!

Looking back I remember helping my Dad, draw water from the hand dug well and hauling it the 200 yards to the house, the wonderful smells of the smoke house and chopping fire wood for Grandma Bryan’s cook stove. If the pieces were too big Grandma would send us both back out to re-split the wood. “John H. and Jon, you know that those pieces are too big. Get yourselves back outside and do it right”, she would order!

I remember fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fresh vegetables, corn on the cob and the cobblers, fresh bread and rolls that couldn’t be duplicated, all prepared on her wood stove and served piping hot. She was a magician with her wood stove!

Most of all, I remember the Tea Cakes she would make for me, really big and thick sugar cookies, light as a feather, but I don’t believe the recipe exists now and, after all of these years, I still miss them and her!