teacake

plural teacakes · alternative tea-cake

1. A baked good such as a cake or biscuit intended to be eaten with tea or at an afternoon tea.
   1. IrelandSouthern EnglandUKA flat, round bread bun, usually containing currants, sultanas or peel and often served toasted and buttered with tea.

      I love the tart, sticky fruit in a warm toasted teacake.

      2017 July 13, Nadiya Hussain, Nadiya's British Food Adventure, Penguin UK, →ISBN

      2 more examples

      Molly poured from the teapot and Judith drank the strong hot tea and ate the buttered teacakes.

      2008 December 11, Rosamunde Pilcher, Coming Home, Hachette UK, →ISBN

      Traditionalists will adore the Lanesborough on Hyde Park Corner, with its stately decor, toasted teacakes and clotted cream-laden scones.

      2012 May 29, Time Out Guides Ltd, Time Out London Top 100, Random House, →ISBN, page 20

   2. CumbriaNorthern EnglandLancashire and West YorkshireA bread roll without fruit; a barm.

      Outside a bread shop in the city centre [Bradford], a queue of two dozen students formed. They wore red armbands and carried the slogan 'Peace, Land, Bread'. Each student bought one teacake.

      2014 June 23, Albert Hunt, Hopes for Great Happenings (Routledge Revivals): Alternatives in Education and Theatre, Routledge, →ISBN

      2 more examples

      ... in Yorkshire and Lancashire mill-workers largely use the plain teacake as a convenient form of bread to be consumed at the meals which they carry with them to eat during the day when living far from their work.

      1917, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, The Parliamentary Debates (Official Report): House of Commons

      I thought at the time that they must be deaf or daft in Sheffield. I'd noticed the same at Slack's bread shop on Staniforth Road. I had asked for a teacake and ended up with a currant breadcake.

      2011 September 15, Martyn Johnson, What's Tha Up To?: Memories of a Yorkshire Bobby, Hachette UK, →ISBN

   3. IrelandScotlandUKA snack consisting of shortbread or wafer topped with meringue or marshmallow, coated in chocolate.

      Sometimes there was a Tunnock's wafer or (bastard) a chocolate marshmallow teacake in its red-and-silver foil.

      2005 October 6, Nigel Slater, Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger, Penguin, →ISBN

      2 more examples

      In 2014, captivated by the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, many found dancing teacakes and Scottie dogs great guilty fun.

      2016 March 16, Christopher Harvie, No Gods and Precious Few Heroes: Twentieth-Century Scotland, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN

      A liquid meringue flooded from the seam where the dome met the biscuit, so that each teacake transformed into a melted snowman wearing a chocolate bowler hat.

      2024 March 28, Olivia Ford, Mrs Quinn’s Rise to Fame: Meet the most unexpected heroine of 2024, Random House, →ISBN

   4. Southern USUSespeciallyA traditional type of dense, large cookie, typically hard-baked, not particularly sweet, and with few extra fillings.

      She liked children and kept them supplied with little teacakes or sugar cookies which the children called Duffy cakes.

      2009 October 15, Foy Allen Edelman, Sweet Carolina: Favorite Desserts and Candies from the Old North State, Univ of North Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 169

      1 more example

      He turned to get her attention then, but I didn't hear what he said because that was when Celeste asked me if a teacake was an American madeleine. And I said not really because it was really a very plain, not very sweet soft cookie, whereas a madeleine was very sweet like a down-home muffin and was baked in a muffin pan.

      2007 December 18, Albert Murray, The Magic Keys, Vintage, →ISBN

   5. USA small delicate cake or pastry; a petit four.

      Fetching a plate of teacakes, Eleanor placed it in front of her. "Thank you," Beatrice said, pinching a small, sticky sweet between her fingers.

      2016 October 27, Ami McKay, The Witches of New York, Hachette UK, →ISBN

      3 more examples

      Madeleines: These buttery French teacakes, something between a sponge cake and a butter cake in texture, are traditionally baked in scallop-shaped madeleine molds, but you can use miniature muffin pans or small tartlet pans in any shape.

      2002 September 10, Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker, Joy of Cooking: All About Cookies, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 120

      The tray of French d'auberge petit fours, small frosted and decorated teacakes cut in squares with eight alternating layers of chocolate cake and chocolate icing, waits on top of the icebox.

      2007 February 28, Joshua Clark, Louisiana in Words, Pelican Publishing, →ISBN, page 125

      The glass case was filled with an assortment of treats, from flaky croissants to decadent chocolate cakes, macarons, baklava, teacakes and petit fours.

      2023 June 1, Barbara Howard, The Taste of Rain, Barbara Howard Media, →ISBN, page 53

   6. AustraliaA sweet cake similar to pound cake, sometimes sprinkled with cinnamon and caster sugar, often served warm.

      Teacakes in Australia are actually pound cakes, sometimes sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and so called just because they are eaten at teatime.

      2007 11, Corby Kummer, Andrews McMeel Publishing,LLC, 1001 Foods To Die For, Andrews McMeel Publishing, →ISBN, page 881

      2 more examples

      The teacake was delicious, just the right warmth to melt the butter, the inside soft enough to melt in the mouth, whilst the top was crisp with cooked brown sugar and cinnamon.

      2014, B. T. O’Brien, The Kong Meng legacy, Australian Self Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 214

      Immediately, as if by magic, Brother Jude arrived with a tray bearing English china, a hand of fresh bananas and a real, cinnamon-covered, teacake.

      2016 November 30, Deslee Campbell, Love Is a Journey, Balboa Press, →ISBN

2. A cake flavoured with tea.
   1. IrelandA fruit cake similar to a barmbrack (but often without yeast) flavoured with tea and whiskey, especially associated with Halloween.

      Barm brack, a raisin-studded teacake of gargantuan proportions, is the speciality of many an Irish matron. In the right hands, it is a divine thing. Ma's hands were not the right hands

      2015 November 19, Claire Sandy, Snowed in for Christmas, Pan Macmillan, →ISBN, page 131

      2 more examples

      We sat around the table sipping tea as I sliced piece after piece of this fruity brack, chatting for nearly an hour, and when the water diviner left, he thanked me for a tea cake as "fine as my mother's."

      2016 March 8, Imen McDonnell, The Farmette Cookbook: Recipes and Adventures from My Life on an Irish Farm, Shambhala Publications, →ISBN, page 48

      One Halloween tradition that can also be brought into your St Patrick Day festivities is the Barmbrack (bairín breac) cake. Made with cold tea, whiskey and dried fruit, this traditional Celtic teacake has an extra edge of fun.

      2021 February 25, Orange Hippo!, The Little Book of St Patrick's Day: A compendium of craic about Ireland's famous festival, Hachette UK, →ISBN, page 118

      Synonyms: tea brack

3. A brick of dried tea.

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:teacake.