teacake — English Dictionary

teacake

Noun

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

    Usage
    • Ireland
    • Southern-England
    • UK usage
    Examples

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

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

    More examples (1)

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

  2. A baked good such as a cake or biscuit intended to be eaten with tea or at an afternoon tea. A bread roll without fruit; a barm.

    Usage
    • Cumbria
    • Northern-England
    Examples
    More examples (3)

    ... 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.

    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.

    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.

  3. A baked good such as a cake or biscuit intended to be eaten with tea or at an afternoon tea. A snack consisting of shortbread or wafer topped with meringue or marshmallow, coated in chocolate.

    Usage
    • Ireland
    • Scotland
    • UK usage
    Examples

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

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

    More examples (1)

    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.

  4. A baked good such as a cake or biscuit intended to be eaten with tea or at an afternoon tea. A traditional type of dense, large cookie, typically hard-baked, not particularly sweet, and with few extra fillings.

    Usage
    • Southern-US
    • US usage
    • especially
    Examples
    More examples (1)

    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.

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

  5. A baked good such as a cake or biscuit intended to be eaten with tea or at an afternoon tea. A small delicate cake or pastry; a petit four.

    Usage
    • US usage
    Examples
    More examples (2)

    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.

    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.

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

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

  6. A baked good such as a cake or biscuit intended to be eaten with tea or at an afternoon tea. A sweet cake similar to pound cake, sometimes sprinkled with cinnamon and caster sugar, often served warm.

    Usage
    • Australia
    Examples

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

    More examples (1)

    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.

    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.

  7. A cake flavoured with tea.

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

    Usage
    • Ireland
    Synonyms
    tea brack
    Examples
    More examples (3)

    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

    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."

    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.

  9. A brick of dried tea.

    Examples

    For quotations using this term, see Citations:teacake.

Noun

  1. flat semisweet cookie or biscuit usually served with tea

    Synonyms
    Broader terms
  2. any of various small cakes or cookies often served with tea

    Broader terms
Word forms
teacakestea-cake

Code Formatters

Format and beautify Java, Python, JavaScript, JSON, HTML and more; adjust indentation, spacing and line breaks.

More tools

Audio Editing & Effects

Trim, join or split recordings, remove silence or noise, and adjust volume, speed, pitch or channels.

More tools

Spreadsheet Tools

Open and edit CSV or Excel sheets, format tabular text, and convert CSV to Excel or SQL.

More tools

Markdown Tools

Write and preview Markdown, render Mermaid diagrams, and convert Markdown, HTML and tables between formats.

More tools

Text Tools

Compare passages, count words and keywords, sort or replace lines, and view DOCX text.

More tools

Dictionaries

Look up Chinese meanings, synonyms and antonyms, or find IPA pronunciations in multiple languages.

Audio Conversion & Playback

Convert between MP3, WAV, FLAC and more, play audio or raw PCM, and inspect or edit audio metadata.

JSON & Data Tools

Inspect, compare and validate JSON; test JSONPath expressions, or convert data to CSV, YAML and XML.

More tools

Speech Tools

Transcribe audio to text, generate speech from text, or record your voice in the browser.

Video Tools

Convert and compress video, trim or join clips, resize frames, and extract audio.

More tools

Video Playback & Recording

Play local or streaming video, record your screen or camera, and use your camera as an online mirror.

PDF Tools

Compress or merge PDFs, split and rearrange pages, convert pages to images, and view or compare documents.

More tools

Image Tools

Convert image formats, resize or crop photos, compress files, compare pictures, and extract text with OCR.

More tools

Image Creation

Capture and beautify screenshots, turn text into images or GIFs, draw on a whiteboard, and create word clouds or favicons.

More tools

Subtitle Tools

Edit SRT or VTT captions with a video preview, shift timing, convert formats, and manage subtitle tracks.

More tools

Archive Tools

Open ZIP, 7Z, RAR or TAR files, extract selected contents, and create new archives with optional ZIP/7Z passwords.

Encoders | Decoders

Encode and decode Base64 or Base32, escape URLs, HTML and Unicode text, and inspect JWT contents.

More tools

Number Tools

Convert number bases and values between binary, decimal and hex; turn numbers into words or text into binary.

Calculators

Work out percentages and fractions, summarize statistics, and calculate grades, discounts or aspect ratios.

More tools

Time Tools

Show an online clock, run a countdown or stopwatch, and calculate dates, ages or time-zone differences.

More tools

Network Tools

Check your IP and IPv6 connection, inspect HTTP requests or HAR files, and calculate CIDR address ranges.

Unit Conversions

Convert length, weight, temperature, data storage and other units.

Color Tools

Convert HEX, RGB and HSL values, extract colors from an image, check contrast, or test your display with solid colors.

QR Codes & Barcodes

Generate and scan QR codes or barcodes, including QR codes for links and Wi-Fi networks.

Developer & Security Tools

Generate hashes, UUIDs and passwords, test regular expressions, create URL slugs and check file permissions.

More tools

Utility Tools

Check screen resolution and refresh rate, measure with a screen ruler, test keys, or read from a teleprompter.

More tools

Games

2048, Minesweeper, Sudoku, Gomoku, Tank Battle

More tools