Golden, warm Irish Tea Cake is an easy dessert to serve with your St. Patrick’s Day Corned Beef and Cabbage. It’s also a homey, delicious Irish baking recipe that’s also perfect any time of year.
What is Irish Tea Cake?
Irish Tea Cake is not the same thing as making Irish Soda Bread then adding a handful of raisins. I have to say this because there are some purists out there who have conniption fits about Irish Soda Bread recipes involving more than four ingredients.
It’s not Irish Soda Bread
They’re not altogether wrong, mind you. Traditional Irish Soda Bread uses only flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk. That’s it. No sugar, no butter, and certainly no raisins. As explained by the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread (yes, there is such a thing), anything else is “tea cake.”
And so, this recipe is for Irish Tea Cake and not Irish Soda Bread with Raisins, though you’re welcome to call it whatever you like. One thing you’re bound to call it is your new favorite Irish baked goods for St. Patrick’s Day, because it’s so simple to make and delicious with a hot cup of tea.
Irish Tea Cake Recipe Steps
Rub Cold Butter into Dry Ingredients
To make Irish Tea Cake, combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Next, add the cubes of very cold butter and, using your fingertips, rub them into the flour mixture until it resembles a coarse meal. This step leads to a “shorter” bread which minimizes the breakdown of gluten, so you wind up with a more tender result.
You might need to fish around in there a few times to ensure there are no more large chunks of butter. Shaking the bowl a bit also helps.
Pour Buttermilk into the Well
Once the butter is completely rubbed in, make a well in the center of the dry mixture. Quickly pour the buttermilk into the center of this well and stir until the ingredients are just combined. Don’t use beaters or a stand mixer or you’ll over-stir and end up with a tough cake at the end.
Add Raisins and Bake
Sprinkle the raisins in during the final few strokes and stir just until they’re mixed into the batter. Doesn’t it look like chocolate chip cookie dough? It has about the same consistency, too, so don’t expect it to flow as a cake batter would.
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Spoon the dough into a well-greased cake pan, pushing it to the edges with your spoon then sprinkle on the remaining sugar. Again, try not to overhandle the dough or it’ll get tough. Since this is a rustic-style Irish baking recipe, you want it to have a craggy top to catch butter when you serve it. Oh, man, it is so good with butter!
Bake for roughly 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. It’ll develop a gorgeous golden brown top while it cooks and your kitchen will smell amazing!
Let it Cool a Bit After Baking
Once it’s ready, remove the bread from the oven and let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack. I let it cool for another 15 minutes longer while I heated the kettle to make tea. After that, we couldn’t wait one more minute to dig in.
Storing Irish Tea Cake
Irish Tea Cake keeps well up to 3 days if stored in an air-tight container at room temperature. If you want to freeze this Irish Tea Cake, let it fully cool and wrap it well in cling wrap followed by two layers of aluminum foil. Defrost fully before serving.
Irish Tea Cake
Inspired by Irish Soda Bread, this sweeter version is studded throughout with raisins and sprinkled with sugar. It’s delicious on its own or slathered with good Irish butter.
Preheat oven to 375°F / 190°C and position a rack in the center of the oven.Grease an 8-inch cake pan well.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, 4 tablespoons of the sugar, and all of the baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add butter to the bowl and, using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Make a well in the center of the dry mixture.Quickly pour the cold buttermilk into the well and stir just to combine.Add in raisins during the final few strokes.
Spoon the dough into the prepared cake pan and use the spoon to bring it to the sides. Do not flatten or smooth the top of the dough — you want it to remain craggy.Sprinkle the dough with the remaining tablespoon of sugar.
Bake at 375°F / 190°C for 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.Cool in pan for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack.
Notes
Storage: Keeps well up to 3 days if stored in an air-tight container at room temperature. If you want to freeze Irish Tea Cake, let it fully cool and wrap it well in cling wrap followed by two layers of aluminum foil. Defrost on the counter before serving.
What do you think? Are you ready to give my Irish Tea Cake Recipe a try?
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Totally trying this! Timing is perfect. I am totally on an Irish Breakfast tea kick, AND I have fresh buttermilk in my fridge right now. Thanks for the recipe, for your hilarious newsletter yesterday (3/6/17), and for your amazing blog. The quality of your content, and your personality, humor, and professionalism bring me back every week. I’m a fan, Katie B!
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Thank you so much for the kind words, Erin!
This is delicious! It is just sweet enough and has a nice dense, but not heavy, texture! I had to add a few extra splashes of buttermilk to get my dough/batter to come together. It was easy to make and I will make it again!
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I’m so glad you liked it!
Can I add pecans or walnuts along with raisin s?
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I don’t see why not! They sound like yummy additions. Maybe just a handful, though, so you don’t need to adjust the other ingredients.
Can I use any dried fruit?
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I haven’t tried a lot of different dried fruits but can’t think of why you couldn’t try some. Let me know which ones work out for you!
I just made this and it is delicious!
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I’m so glad you liked it, Lynda!
Thanks for the recipe. Coniption fit! Ha ha. Happens to be one of my own personal sayings. Delighted you had the metric conversion. Waterford, Ireland 🇮🇪
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Love this! Just had it for tea..with butter and marmalade. Absolutely perfect. So quick and easy to make, followed directions as written. Thank you so much!
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I’m so glad you liked it, Peggy. It’s a favorite here, too. 🙂
Made your Irish Tea Cake recipe but the texture is dry. Why is this as I followed your directions exactly. This should be soft and dense in the inside? And crunchy hard on the outside?
Reply
It’s a tea cake, not soda bread, so it shouldn’t be crunchy on the outside. If that’s what you were aiming for, then my guess is you cooked it too long which would result in a dry texture.
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Pound cakes are similar to tea cakes except that they are more dense and their main four ingredients are measured in pounds like a pound of flour, sugar, butter and eggs each. These cakes are popular in the U.K and are usually served plain or with light frosting during tea time.
England. 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.
Celebrate in style with Bite's Birthday Tea Cakes, a confetti-flavored treat topped with sweet icing and sprinkles. Whether it's a birthday party or any festive occasion, these cakes are the perfect bites.
A question we are commonly asked here at the Texas Tea Cake Company is "What is a tea cake?" According to historians, the American tea cake was created over 200 years ago by African slaves in the southeastern United States. Tea cakes were initially made by plantation cooks for the guest of white slave owners.
What do the white men call Tea Cake? The white men call him Jim. Whom has Tea Cake seen alive, and who has died in the flood? Tea Cake meets up with Stew Beef, Ed Dockery, Sop-de-Bottom, 'Lias, Coodemay, Bootyny, and Motor Boat when he returns to the Everglades.
The Tunnock's Teacake is a sweet food often served with a cup of tea or coffee. It was developed by Sir Boyd Tunnock in 1956. The product consists of a small round shortbread biscuit covered with a dome of Italian meringue, a whipped egg white concoction similar to marshmallow, although somewhat lighter in texture.
/ˈferi keɪk/ (British English) (also cupcake North American English, British English) a small cake, baked in a paper container that is like a cup in shape and often with icing on top.
Two white men with rifles force Tea Cake to bury corpses. Disgusted with the work and fearful of the racism around the town (the white corpses get coffins, but the Black corpses are simply dumped in a ditch and covered with quicklime), Tea Cake and Janie decide to leave surreptitiously and return to the Everglades.
Although they are widely known, tea cakes have not always gone by this name. They are referred to as currant buns or spiced buns in some regions of the UK. Similar baked goods have different names in other nations.
Tea and cake are a perfect pairing for an afternoon snack in many countries. In Japan, kasutera is a popular sponge cake, derived from the Portuguese castela cake. Originally introduced to Japan by Portuguese sailors in the port town of Nagasaki, Kasutera is now a specialty of the city.
1) Irish Christmas Cake, also known as Christmas fruitcake or plum cake, is a baked cake filled with dried fruits, nuts, spices, and often soaked in alcohol (typically whiskey) for weeks before baking. 2) The cake is typically round, like a regular cake, and is often covered with a layer of marzipan and royal icing.
It is also worth noting that the “Pound Cake” is now known by many names; “Madeira Cake” or “Yellow Cake” even simply “Loaf Cake”. No matter what it's called, one thing is for sure! The simple sponge cake recipe has stood the test of time and remained a staple for home baking!
But to Southerners, tea cakes are more than that. They are the nostalgic cookies—crispy and golden around the edges, soft and cake-like inside—that are perfect for tea, or just about anything else you choose to drink.
Texture: Tea cakesare typically denser than sponge cakes as they contain more butter and are often made with a lower amount of rising agents like baking powder.
Tea cakes originated in Britain and were served, as the name implies, with afternoon tea. But in the South, the cookies evolved into a special snack. In some families they were served only on holidays. In others, they were especially for children.
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Introduction: My name is Cheryll Lueilwitz, I am a sparkling, clean, super, lucky, joyous, outstanding, lucky person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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