The Tunnocks Tea Cake

October 18, 2020 5:05 AM

Biscuit or cake? Choosing not to make coffins, Tunnock instead developed several items of confectionary including the Caramel wafer (extremely popular in middle class Bristol), and the tea cake preferred by HRH. Said tea cake is a small round shortbread biscuit covered with a dome of meringue, encased in a layer of chocolate and wrapped in reusable silver foil. Present in a cloche, and accompany with a nice cup of tea. For a fuller meal, they can be deep fried. It's gotta be big, or quickly eat 14 normal ones. Terry in space. Another MeFite discovers cushions. Doughnuts and ice cream and masks are available, while the wrappers can be used in art.
posted by Wordshore (46 comments total)

(NSFW) a scene from Still Game about eating Tea Cakes, and two more pictures of the inside...
posted by Wordshore at 5:12 AM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have an apron. And a tunnocks tin... chock full of tea cakes and caramel wafers *cackles and rubs hands gleefully*. I miss the snowballs though, haven’t seen those for years.
posted by ElasticParrot at 5:35 AM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

Said tea cake is a small round shortbread biscuit covered with a dome of meringue, encased in a layer of chocolate

Marshmallow surely?

I've just ordered my girlfriend some Tunnock's Carmel Wafer as she still claims the superiority of British confection is overstated.
I feel bad about bringing out the nuclear option so quickly but needs must.
posted by fullerine at 5:46 AM on October 18, 2020 [9 favorites]

Don’t forget the dancing Tunnocks teacakes in the Glasgow 2014 Opening Ceremony...

Caramel wafer all the way for me. Not so big on the teacakes, though they are beautifully wrapped. Damn, now I want a caramel wafer.

On preview: Yep, they’re deffo marshmallow, not meringue.
posted by penguin pie at 5:52 AM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

Tunnocks' Teacakes are the official snack of when I take my elderly Scottish mum out for a drive for the morning. We'll scoff a box together.

I lived in a remote part of north-east Guyana for a few months in the 1990s and you could buy Tunnocks Wafers there for some reason.
posted by dowcrag at 6:00 AM on October 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

It’s always difficult understanding all of the cake/cookie/biscuit etc definitions in addition to throwing in transatlantic confusion but we are just including a whole new level with these “tea cakes” (that look nothing like cake to me!) and appear to be mallomars!
posted by raccoon409 at 6:52 AM on October 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

I’ve always wondered what tea cakes were!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:15 AM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

A Wordshore post isn't a Wordshore post without mentioning confectionery, especially Tunnocks! Time to head out to get some tomorrow I guess.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 7:26 AM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Just to add to the teacake confusion, if you go out for tea/coffee/snacks in the UK and "toasted teacake" is on the menu, that means a fruited bread bun like this.

I don't know why Tunnocks call their weird meringue things teacakes (full disclosure: I can't stand Tunnocks' products, there's no nostalgia factor there for me, this is yet another thing that makes me Bad at British even though I was born here, I also don't drink tea, etc.), but it's absolutely not safe to assume that if you hear the word "teacake" you're going to get served one of these. It seems that we use the words "Tunnocks" or "toasted" to differentiate between the two kinds of teacake, the former definitely being a chocolate-coated meringue blob, the latter definitely being an individual serving of bun-shaped fruit bread.
posted by terretu at 7:43 AM on October 18, 2020 [6 favorites]

In America we make do with Mallomars and Pinwheel cookies.
posted by emjaybee at 7:45 AM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Here is also where I gripe about the marshmallow/meringue confusion because we watched Great British Baking Show yesterday and someone made s'more brownies with, I think, meringue, not marshmallow. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.
posted by emjaybee at 7:49 AM on October 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

Just to add to the teacake confusion, if you go out for tea/coffee/snacks in the UK and "toasted teacake" is on the menu, that means a fruited bread bun like this.

To add further to the complexity and contradictions that make up the UK / Britain / England / t'north and The BBC South, a teacake can also be a cake as opposed to being just a bread bun of some descriptions that's been sliced. Examples here, here and here.

Some people also apparantly differentiate between "teacake" and "tea cake", but a quick search throws up examples that fit into both categories so I'm sceptical.

Having said that, "toasted teacake" does seem to refer solely to cut-bun or cut-bread variation (though daresay if looked hard enough, there would be examples that contradicted this). So putting "toasted" before food products is possibly a good differentiator or means of clarify.

A friend has also suggested that a Tunnocks Teacake is "A grossly inflated Jaffa Cake with marshmallow replacing the orange bit", but she's from Doncaster so I don't know and am not going there (Doncaster, or that particular sub-argument).
posted by Wordshore at 7:56 AM on October 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

Marshmallow surely?

Yep, they’re deffo marshmallow, not meringue.

INGREDIENT DECLARATION: Mallow 38% (Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Egg Albumen)
posted by zamboni at 7:58 AM on October 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

Just before the first lockdown I saw on Twitter that Tunnocks were closing the factory. Two days later I was in the Waitrose near me and the Tunnock shelf was fully stocked. Never quite felt so much like a foreigner down South as when I stood there torn between wanting to take it all into my trolley and wondering why I was completely on my own on the aisle. Took two 16 packs of the caramels and 12 tea cakes.
posted by DoveBrown at 8:45 AM on October 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

“Is that a marshmallow or a meringue?”

“Naw, yer right enough, it’s marshmallow“
posted by gnuhavenpier at 8:51 AM on October 18, 2020 [5 favorites]

One thing I love about Tunnocks, and the timeline on their website illustrates this, is (and I mean this in a nice way) their only minimal interest in innovation. They thought up some really nice products decades ago and that's what they still do.
posted by dowcrag at 8:51 AM on October 18, 2020 [7 favorites]

"just a cake meets a biscuit – with a lot of rainforest-thrashing palm oil in its mix." Ha.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:05 AM on October 18, 2020

Those perfectly flattened wrappers in the Still Game clip...
[I am in this picture and I don't like it]
:O
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:07 AM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

We'll scoff a box together.

Wait, do you mean “scoff” or “scon”?
posted by notoriety public at 9:09 AM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

“Is that a marshmallow or a meringue?”

I'm not too proud to admit that I have been trying to think of a wording for that on and off for the whole afternoon.

Of course, with the caveat that I'm team meringue (it's thickened with egg white, not gelatine*), so probably it's harder to stick the pun when you believe a meringue is right. It's Italian meringue, or course. French meringues are the brittle ones.

*That said, the marshmallow-on-an-extra-plain-biscuit baked goods I massively bulk bought at the beginning of lockdown were thickened with carrageenan.
posted by ambrosen at 9:15 AM on October 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

Tory teacakes? Tory teacakes!?!!? I don't think so. No amount of marshmallow will win me over.

This despite the fact that I made Eton mess not once but twice this summer. (It started out as pavlova but the meringue was not beautiful enough.)

Now it's fall it's time for flies' graveyard and sad cakes.
posted by Frowner at 9:20 AM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

Reverse Engineering Teacakes.
posted by Wordshore at 9:53 AM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

I play a guessing game, I read the post lead in and sometimes it just says Wordshore!!! Ha ha ha, so delightful.

Stroop waffles and Moon Pies...Bakersfield fare. I found a box of Moon Pies at WINCO, they are now hiding out on the top of my fridge. I won't bore you with the story of how, in first grade, I went to a country school in Arkansas, with a baloney sandwich in a brown bag with six cents inside. The six cents bought a carton of whole milk with a paper straw, and a Moon Pie. Round graham wafers with layers of marshmallow, the whole roundness dipped in "chocolate." I can't say enough about the flavor of whole milk through a paper straw. That is lost to us now. Stroop Waffles come from World Market, home of many imported treats. But still that charming dish thingy to hold a mound of goodness like that...

Pronounced in Arkansan Mooon Paah!
posted by Oyéah at 10:00 AM on October 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

Yeah your Tea Cakes look a lot like half of a Moon Pie (kinda like your crumpets are half of our English muffins).
posted by Rash at 10:20 AM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

I want to sample one of each but the caramel log sounds tastiest to me. That doughnut shop though sounds wonderful and wonderfully weird, especially if you don’t mind a future heart attack or two.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:20 AM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

definitely marshmallow even if thickened with egg meringue should be hard. There used to ba variant if the snowball where have was mallow and half meringue. I have no idea if they still exist but I was told my grandfather invented it.
posted by bifurcated at 11:20 AM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

The Tunnock's Caramel wrapper says that '4 million of these biscuits are sold every week', which I've always thought was a rather dubious claim.
posted by Flashman at 12:29 PM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

definitely marshmallow even if thickened with egg meringue should be hard.

Hmm...

Italian Meringue

Swiss Meringue

And Lemon Meringue Pie would also like a word with you.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:36 PM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

definitely marshmallow even if thickened with egg meringue should be hard.

There are different types of meringue. Even French meringue is not always baked hard, e.g. îles flottantes.

I would argue that a 'mallow' with egg whites, sugar and glucose sugar could be classified as both Italian meringue and marshmallow.
posted by zamboni at 12:40 PM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

When I was trying to find out the name of the version of Tunnocks Tea Cakes I remember from childhood (they were called Marshmallows, not McVities or Cadbury, but one of the famous ones one of those confections that warped my understanding of what the actual confection was supposed to be, see also Butterkist popcorn and Fry's Turkish Delight. They also had jam in, I think, and were the star of any Sunday teatime they featured in, which didn't happen that often), I found this recipe for teacakes for those "avoiding milk, soya and egg or milk, soya, egg and wheat", which might be of use to someone.

As I remember, in the 1970s Tunnocks biscuits were an exotic Scottish delicacy, like Irn Blu or tablet or square sausage. But I may be wrong, it may just have been my mother lying to me.
posted by Grangousier at 12:46 PM on October 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

In Sweden they have Mums Mums, which are a round thin wafer covered with mallow and dipped in chocolate. They are yummy and perhaps like the teacakes discussed above. But I have no idea what the caramels are like. Maybe a bit like Kit-Kats on steroids plus thin layers of caramel? Help me out here.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:01 PM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

The Tunnock's Caramel wrapper says that '4 million of these biscuits are sold every week', which I've always thought was a rather dubious claim.

Most are sold in packets of 4 or 8 in Supermarkets, so that's only half a million to a million packs a week. And that's before the individual ones sold out of shops, or vending machines. The figure is very believable - I've seen close up how many a small family can get through in a week.
posted by Wordshore at 1:14 PM on October 18, 2020 [6 favorites]

I do miss a good Tunnock's wafer now that I've moved to the Teutonic lands, but at least they have Super Dickmanns which are the same thing as a Tunnock's teacake except more German
posted by The River Ivel at 2:32 PM on October 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

Grangousier, I was musing on that myself this afternoon! I remember the Marshmallows you speak of well, and for years had no idea marshmallow was also what you called just the white stuff, it was synonymous with the biscuits for me. An inch/inch and a half diameter, like a mini Tunnocks teacake but with a little blob of jam in? A whole packet of them in a row.

It was only when I later moved to Scotland I heard people raving about Tunnocks and when I eventually tried one, was like: "You mean... they're just big marshmallows without the jam?"
posted by penguin pie at 3:44 PM on October 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

(kinda like your crumpets are half of our English muffins). What now? NO. No no no no no... You are confused, dear friend.

US English muffins have a crumb. They are crumbly when toasted. They are little flat breads that are only really edible when toasted. A crumpet, however, is both fluffy and chewy. Crumpets have bubbly holes running from top to bottom. Before they are cooked (in a frying pan for goodness sake!) they look like a stiff batter.

Both delicious. But not the same!!

Btw, my brother holds an annual Burns night dinner, the highlight of which is always a surprise monstrous desert. Once infamous year, he made a GIANT Tunnocks Teacake that was, apparently, magnificent. The homemade tinfoil-painted wrapper is now framed in his flat and it's about a meter square.
posted by EllaEm at 4:10 PM on October 18, 2020 [8 favorites]

Also: if you are in the US, World Market often stocks both Tunnocks Teacakes and caramel wafers. The latter always remind me of the school packed lunches my mum would give me :-)
posted by EllaEm at 4:11 PM on October 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

Years ago, when it came to marshmallows cookies, depending on where you fell on Canada's Two Solitudes, you had either the Viva Puffs (for the English) or the Whippets [note - not the dog] (pour les Français). Prior to 2004, when Ontario based Dare bought out Quebec rival Viau, the respective marshmallow cookie camps were deeply divided. Our house was strictly a Whippet house and, when we lived in the Toronto area for a couple years when I was a teen, my dad would source boxes of Whippets from Montreal. My mum would always exclaim "Whippets are the same damn thing as Viva Puffs! Why go to all the trouble!" But you see she, being half Scottish, preferred the Tunnocks tea cakes (though the snowballs are her favourite) which she hoarded jealously allowing us only to sample them at Christmas time when her mother would bring her back a new supply (as well as Edinburgh Rock which we loved).

In summation, I will say this: my mother was right, eventually, about the Viva Puff & Whippet. They are the same now that they are made on the same assembly line. She was also right about another thing - Tunnocks Tea Cakes are superior to either of the Canadian equivalent. And I also prefer the snowball.
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:23 PM on October 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

so... Mallowmars?
posted by The otter lady at 5:02 PM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

What would be the offspring of British Teacakes and US Coffee cake (aka streusel cake elsewhere)? Mallow with crumbly brown sugar bits on top?
posted by bartleby at 6:18 PM on October 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

A few years ago I was wandering through some backstreets in Okinawa and stumbled across a small Tunnocks warehouse, which was very unexpected. I can't actually eat them nowadays but it was still exciting to think there were potentially huge piles of them on the other side of the wall.
posted by BinaryApe at 1:55 AM on October 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

They don’t sell the dark chocolate Tunnock’s Tea Cakes in the Republic of Ireland; I have to cross the border to get them at Sainsbury’s.
posted by macdara at 1:57 AM on October 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

Can’t believe the thread has got this far without mentioning the Deadly/Exploding Tunnock’s*.

*provenance suspected, but unconfirmed
posted by myotahapea at 2:27 AM on October 19, 2020 [4 favorites]

Marks and Spencers do their own version of Tunnocks Teacakes, which I slightly prefer.

The coffeeshop I have recently started to frequent on my lunch break has what appears to be a custom made display unit for both Tunnocks Teacakes and Caramel Wafers. It has little slots just the right shape and size for each, a bit like one of those shape sorters for small children, so you can restock from behind the display unit, and then each one rests on its own little shelf. I was quite taken by it.
posted by kumonoi at 10:58 AM on October 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

Whoah, back up there a minute EllaEm... you FRY crumpets? What's going on?! Toast them! Grill at most. Then cover with butter, jam optional.
posted by penguin pie at 3:17 PM on October 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

penguin pie, I think EllaEm might be making crumpets from scratch, in which case a solid frying pan is a good alternative to a griddle.
posted by ambrosen at 4:07 PM on October 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

Aha!

I am now being served Insta ads for Tunnocks cushions, even though I didn't click on that link above...
posted by penguin pie at 5:22 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]