Legend of Tennessee T-Cakes

Ruth’s Tennessee Tea Cakes – The Story

We were introduced to Tennessee T-Cakes in January 2007 at the Nashville Flea Market and loved these dense, chewy sweet treats. They were a highlight of special occasions and holidays for a few years, but unfortunately the company closed in 2011 after the owner died and the recipe was not handed down. Over the years I thought of creating my own version of those unique little cakes but never had the time.

Fast forward to 2020, my baking mission was to develop what became “Ruth’s Tennessee Tea Cakes”. This involved testing and experimenting with all published T-Cake recipes that we could find and soliciting feedback from a truly dedicated team. The result of this labor of love is a delicious rich cake in a variety of flavors for your enjoyment.

My inspiration verse is Ruth 1:6 "...the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them". Profits from the sale of Ruth's Tennessee Tea Cakes are used to support food charities locally and internationally.

Being a full-time employee, wife, mother, friend and volunteer had me stretched to the limits for many years. Life slowed down, I worked from home for several months, I started crafting again, and remembered the delicious Tennessee T-Cakes that we used to buy.  What an exciting thought to finally have time to try to revive them!

It took six months of development, trial and error, testing and tweaking to create our very own recipes, and getting feedback from our friends group who were willing victims participants in the development process. Having a stable and repeatable process was key, so that we would have predictable results. By Fall 2020 we were confident in our first two flavors, Sweet & Spicy, an original blend of unique spices (think chai or pfefferneuse) and Mocha-Choca-Lotta, a coffee and chocolate marriage made in heaven. The next two flavors to be developed were Orange Zest (woo hoo! Welcome to the world of making candied orange rind!) and Pecan Pie (my husband's favorite flavor, and definitely his influence on the recipe - it has bourbon!). Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Peppermint Puff was added to the line up, and it was a home run from the start. 

Guess what our friends and relatives got as Christmas presents in 2020? Tea Cakes! Yes, we shipped hundreds of Ruth's Tennessee Tea Cakes around the US and even to Taiwan. The feedback started pouring in- here are a few of the comments received from family and friends:

• "You have caused serious distress in this home, yes,  you - with that gift you sent us. You see, I came to realize that I don’t love my children nearly enough to wait and share those amazing little cakes with them. How can a mother live this realization?"

• "I normally do not like commercial baking. Either too dry, or too sweet or not sweet enough. So, if they weren’t each packaged in clever little bags, I would be inclined to guess these wonderful pieces of heaven are homemade. I shall not bore you with my rhapsodizing about both the flavors and the textures of the little cakes...I just want to know how to get more!"

• "We had our upstairs neighbors over for supper and I served them for our dessert. We were all oohing and aahing over the tasty tea cakes. They wanted to know where we bought them!"

• "Your tea cakes were a hit! They are similar to a chewy cookie or brownie. The spices in the Pecan tea cake are just right. The Sweet & Spicy had a kick and I detected black pepper on the aftertaste. Such an interesting combination!"...later... "We just finished off the last tea cakes tonight". I had the Mocha and it was delicious!" 

• "Oh my gosh...these tea cakes are so delicious"

I did not start on this journey with the intention of starting a business, it was the pursuit of tea cake perfection that became my passion. Developing new flavors became a challenge that we stepped up to...Salted Caramel was George's idea and it quickly became popular. Seasonal flavors are exciting to develop also - Lemon Poppyseed for spring, Key Lime for summer, Caramel Apple for fall, our 2020 Christmas flavor was Peppermint Puff, then in 2021 the Gingerbread tea cake was developed as a special commission. Wow! It is amazing and got rave reviews. You can be confident that all flavors are true to the Tennessee Tea Cake taste and quality standards we rigorously adhere to. Taste one and you will be hooked!

Small Batch Brownies were added to the lineup in Summer 2022, and if you are a chocolate lover these are for you! Rich, moist, chewy and full of dark chocolate flavor. The varieties are so much fun to develop - lots of taste testing and feedback from our ever faithful testing panel is involved. Double Chocolate, Chocolate Cherry, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Chocolate Walnut, Chocolate Caramel... you get the idea.

Questions, Special Order Requests, Need More Information?

Contact me:   Ruth@SmallBatchBakeryTN.com