Teacakes. Mother’s day. Little did I know when I started this blog that I would end up with a recipe that would symbolize the strong women on my paternal side of the family and bring me back to where this blog started. Journeys are surprising like that.

I have always had my maternal grandmother’s teacake recipe. It’s the first recipe I ever shared on this blog. When my mom made them, my dad would always say “my grandmother’s were better.” But to imagine a cookie I could never taste was worthless to me as a kid. All I could enjoy was the teacake in front of me not the one I had never eaten. Since my great-grandmother passed away years before I was born, the thought of a better teacake was the intangible. Until now.

Last week, I visited my great-aunt Katholine Callahan Slusher and being the family history nerd that I am, I asked question after question. She answered every question and more. I wanted to know if she remembered each set of her grandparents, and if so, what they were like. She explained that she didn’t ever remember eating at her maternal grandparents’ house possibly the result of my great-grandmother ‘marrying down’ when she chose an Irish boy with a head of red hair and a name to match, Red Callahan.

But her paternal grandparents were a different story. What follows are my Aunt Kat’s stories as well as the stories of others as they remember my great great-grandmother Callahan. Then I will share a very special teacake recipe with you. My Aunt Kat mailed me a copy right away. It is the teacake recipe of her mother Ruth Kuykendall Callahan and her grandmother Frances Ann Nolen Callahan.

 

A special thanks to my Aunt Kat, my Aunt Gayle, Dianna Carol Callahan Martin and everyone else who shared a memory or story with me. It takes some pretty strong women to set the path upon which we travel. I consider myself lucky to have that. So on Mother’s Day…celebrate not only the strong mother you have but also the women in your life who helped put you on life’s path for they lead by example, listen, offer advice, challenge us, tell us stories and help us discover who we are. And then enjoy a teacake or 3!

Frances Ann Nolen Callahan was born in Bienville Parrish, Louisiana in 1870. Her father survived a cannonball wound to the leg at the battle of Missionary Ridge and a Civil War hospital to bring his family to Texas in 1879. Grandma Callahan would tell stories of them coming to Texas in a wagon, and going as far as camping on the Brazos river. It is believed they turned back at this point because her mother got ill. They headed back to East Texas where they settled.

Me: What do you remember about her?

Dianna Carol Callahan Martin: I remember getting up from my naps, and mother letting me go over to her house to see her. I had dresses with sashes, and mother always tied them too tight. So as I was walking over to grandma’s house I would untie my sash, and grandma would not tie it back tight! I was a stinker!

I also remember that she had chickens that ran loose in the yard. Mother would go to hand out her clothes on the line, and she had a mean white leghorn rooster and it spurred mother several times. Then one day the rooster spurred me. Grandma heard me crying, and ran out her back door. I still think I remember hearing the screen door slam and grandma writhing that rooster’s neck right then and there. She said we would have dumplings tomorrow. Mother always said the darn rooster spurred her many times, but when it did it to me Grandma killed him!

I also remember people coming to Grandma Callahan’s to play cards. Grandma got mad at one of them for cheating, and she chased them out of the house and threw her shoe at them. As a kid, I thought it was hilarious. She was indeed a character.

Me: So Aunt Kat, your grandmother Callahan was quite a character no? What was she like?

Aunt Kat: You could certainly say that. Well we loved to go there. She always had food. And this giant tin of teacakes that you could just reach in and grab a teacake. That’s how I learned to make them. I make them like her and my mama. Now this recipe makes a lot but you just put them in a container. They don’t get old, they just mellow. Now just get your hands in there and mix them. When I make them, I have dough everywhere and under every fingernail but you have to do it that way to mix them. And then roll them out. You can roll them out thin, but I don’t do that. I like them to be a bit fluffy. And make sure you set out your eggs before you start. Don’t use them cold.

Callahan/Kuykendall Teacakes

Ingredients:

-5 cups flour

-4 cups sugar

-6 eggs

-1 cup butter NO OLEO

– 1/2 cup buttermilk

– 1 tsp baking soda

– 1 tsp baking powder

– 2 tsp vanilla

Directions

-Oven at 350 degrees. Bake 12-15 minutes

– In a large mixing bowl put the 5 cups flour. Make a “well’ in the middle of the flour and add all the ingredients.

– Mix well with your hands

– Add flour as needed until the dough looks like “cookie dough”

-Roll out to thickness as desired. If you roll thin, they will be crisp.

“NEVER gets old, just mellow”