Soft, cake-like tea cakes are topped with a rich lime cream cheese glaze for the best little dessert or snack bite!

Tea + cake! In other words, little soft, cake-like cookies that are mini-sized, covered with frosting, and so tiny you can eat several without any guilt.

There are several versions of tea cakes out there and this version you see today is most reminiscent of southern-style tea cakes. This means we’ve got a soft almost sugar cookie-like texture only just a touch lighter and fluffier with lots of buttery flavor.

And did I mention lime cream cheese glaze? I mean, C’MON.

The dough for these cakes is a pretty standard cookie dough that can be mixed up both in a stand mixer or by hand. Super simple ingredients like butter, sugar, flour, eggs, etc. Nothing fancy happening here today!

Just a little bit of dessert magic, that’s all.

These Cakes feature…

A soft and light texture
Lots of lime flavor in both the cakes and the cream cheese glaze
An easy dough that comes together in minutes

Making the Tea Cakes

(scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe)

Ingredients You Will Need

Unsalted butter
Granulated sugar
Egg
Vanilla extract
Lime zest
All-purpose flour
Baking soda
Kosher salt
Cream cheese
Powdered sugar
2% or skim milk

Tips for Perfect Tea Cakes

Cream butter and sugar together – make sure your butter is softened to room-temperature and cream well with the sugar several minutes until completely smooth.
Bring egg to room temperature – this will help mix the egg cohesively into the butter.
Use a stand mixer or mix dough by hand – this recipe is both mixer-friendly and bowl-and-spoon friendly.
Spoon and level flour – I use the spoon-and-level technique for measuring flour as this will prevent over-measuring your flour. Use a spoon to scoop flour into the measuring cup, then level with the back of a knife.
Chill dough – chilling the dough for about 2 hours before baking will prevent the cakes from excessive spreading.
Bake cakes at 325F – this lower temperature will help the cakes bake up soft and fluffy.
Allow cakes to cool before glazing – if you try to glaze the cookies while they’re still warm the glaze will melt off.

Recipe Variations

Try these ideas for a different twist on this recipe.

Try another citrus – replace the lime with lemon, orange, or grapefruit zest.
Skip the glaze – drizzle tea cakes with caramel or melted chocolate instead.

Storing and Freezing Instructions

Allow cakes to cool completely, then frost and store in an airtight container in refrigerator up to 4 days. For best results, I recommend bringing cakes to room temperature before serving.

To freeze cakes, allow to cool completely, then wrap well and freeze up to 2 months. Thaw cakes completely at room temperature and top with glaze just before serving.

Be warned, friends, it’s WAY too easy to accidentally demolish at least 2 or 10 of these cakes in one sitting! The soft, buttery cookie base with that dreamy lime cream cheese glaze swirled into every bite is a thing of magic.

You’ve been warned, keep these far out of reach.

Save this recipe using the ‘save to recipe box’ button below. If you make it, please let us know! Leave a comment + star rating below, or take a photo and tag it on with #wholeandheavenlyoven.

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