MOTHER’S DAY TEA CAKES

While practices honoring mothers date back to ancient times, the modern holiday of Mother’s Day originated in the United States. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson designated the second Sunday in May as a national holiday to honor mothers. For more than a century, the carnation has been the official flower of Mother’s Day. The flower’s soft petals cloak a surprising hardiness, which makes the carnation a natural choice as the symbol of a mother’s pure and enduring love. The sweet frosting of these tiny tea cakes is a nod to the lovely white and pink carnations sure to be found in many a Mother’s Day bouquet.

With olive oil rather than butter in the batter, the tea cakes have a supremely tender crumb and create perfect little petit fours for mom, or for anyone who has nurtured and mothered you best.

These tea cakes would look lovely topped with a blueberry and tiny mint leaf and displayed on a silver platter, nestled around a vase of ruffled carnations. Happy Mother’s Day!

Yield:

3 dozen 2-inch cakes

INGREDIENTS

For the cake:

• 6 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups pure cane sugar
• Grated zest from 1 fresh lemon
• Juice from 1 fresh lemon
• 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

For the lemon icing:

• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (OR for pink icing: 2 tablespoons lemon juice plus 1 tablespoon unsweetened pomegranate or pomegranate/blueberry juice)

For the garnish:

• Blueberries, washed and patted dry
• Several sprigs of mint leaves

METHOD:

With oven rack in center position, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 13 x 18 x 1-inch-deep half-sheet pan with vegetable spray. Line the pan with parchment paper lengthwise (the vegetable spray will help the parchment stick to the pan) leaving a 2-inch overhang of paper at both ends of the pan. Spray parchment with more vegetable spray and line pan with parchment paper widthwise as well, again leaving a 2-inch overhang on both sides of the pan. Once cake is baked, the overhanging paper will allow you to easily lift the cake out of the pan to your work surface.

Combine lemon zest with juice in a small bowl. Place this bowl, along with your cup of measured olive oil and cup of measured milk, next to your stand mixer. In the bowl of the mixer fitted with whisk attachment, add the eggs and sugar and whip at high speed for ½ a minute. With mixer still running, add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Reduce speed to low and repeat with the milk. Beat in the lemon zest and juice. Turn off mixer.

In a separate bowl, stir flour, baking powder, and salt together with a fork. Turn mixer to low speed again; add flour mixture to batter in three parts, whisking between each addition and scraping down the sides of the mixer bowl. Scrape any lemon zest fragments clinging to the whisk attachment back into the batter. Pour and spread batter to fill parchment lined half-sheet pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean. The top of the cake will be smooth and glossy and pale gold, not browned. Remove cake from oven and cool cake in pan for 5 minutes.

Using the parchment paper overhangs on the short sides of the pan as handles, carefully lift the cake out of the pan onto a clean flat work surface. Once cake has completely cooled, use a 2-inch biscuit cutter to cut cake into circles. (Save trim for snacking.)

Whisk powdered sugar with lemon juice in a wide shallow bowl until you have a glossy, smooth icing. Dip the top of each cake circle into the glaze, allowing excess to drip back into bowl. Place each little cake right side up on a serving platter. Top with a blueberry and tiny mint leaf. Serve.