Some of my favorite childhood memories center around my mother's Old Fashioned Tea Cakes.  A southern dish, they are simple, easy-to-make and relatively low-sugar, for such a sweet treat.

If you decorate them with icing, the sugar content jumps.  But if you paint them with colored evaporated milk, they are pretty, shiny and delicious, without being laden with sugar.

<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/tea_cake_ingredients1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-395" title="tea_cake_ingredients" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/tea_cake_ingredients1.jpg" alt="" width="799" height="905" /></a>

Only six ingredients: shortening; sugar; eggs; milk; vanilla and self-rising flour.

And you just mix those six things together, add enough flour to get a stiff dough, then roll it out and cut it with cookie cutters. Brush them with colored evaporated milk.  Then bake for 6 minutes or so. Gotta love these simple recipes.

&nbsp;

Old Fashioned Tea Cakes

1 cup shortening

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups self-rising flour

Mix all ingredients together. Add enough self-rising flour to make a stiff dough. (It usually takes another 1 cup to 1.5 cup.)  Roll out on a floured board. Cut with cookie cutters and put on a cookie sheet.

Mix food coloring into a small quantity of evaporated milk, to desired color.  Bush onto the uncooked cookies.

Bake at 400 degrees until brown, 5 or 6 minutes.