Whip up a batch of the world famous original tea cakes from Martino’s Bakery in Burbank, California in your own kitchen with this copycat recipe.
Over the holiday season, I had the pleasure of tasting tea cakes from Martino’s Bakery in Burbank, California. Their original tea cakes are world famous and it is not uncommon for people from near and far to come grab them by the dozen before they sell out.
The original tea cakes are square in shape, have a soft and tender crumb, and are topped with a thin glaze that hardens to create a sweet crinkly shell topping.
Upon first bite, the cake base is reminiscent of vanilla, but as the flavors continue to reveal themselves, you’ll notice there’s an underlying nutty, caramel flavor.
Martino’s Bakery also offers blueberry and cranberry tea cakes, which I also tried and thought were delicious, but nothing was quite like the original.
After trying the tea cakes, I just had to recreate it in my own kitchen. I was on a mission and spent days baking nothing but tea cakes. I finally landed on a recipe that I’m proud to share with you so that you can whip up a batch of the original tea cakes in your own kitchen!
How to Make Martino’s Bakery Original Tea Cakes
First thing’s first. You will need a square cupcake pan. The tea cakes have a signature square shape, so if they’re not square to begin with, they wouldn’t be much of a copycat recipe.
I bought this Wilton Brownie Bar Pan from Amazon, but have also seen it at Joann.
Good news is, that’s the only special piece of equipment you’ll need. Line the pan with standard sized, round cupcake liners that you probably already have in your kitchen. Gently press the liners into the pan and the liners will conform to the square shape.
Next, you’re going to develop that rich and nutty caramel flavor I mentioned earlier. I did this by roasting instant dry milk in a low temperature oven for a few minutes.
Spread the dry milk powder on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Pop it into the oven until golden brown. It only takes a few minutes so monitor it closely and don’t go far. Otherwise you may end up with burnt milk and you’ll have to start over again!
Once the milk is toasted and cooled, add it to shaken room temperature buttermilk using the parchment paper to help you. Stir until the toasted milk has mostly dissolved. It’s ok if a few granules don’t dissolve.
Pro-tip: It’s important to shake buttermilk while in the carton before pouring in order to evenly distribute any contents that may have settled. Making sure that the buttermilk is at room temperature before using will help it incorporate easily and thoroughly into the cake batter.
No buttermilk? No problem! While I HIGHLY recommend using real buttermilk, if you need an emergency substitute for buttermilk, stir 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar into 1 cup of whole milk and let stand for a few minutes. Then, only use the amount called for in the recipe.
Alternatively, you can substitute the equivalent amount of buttermilk called for in the recipe with plain yogurt.
Next, whisk together the dry ingredients – flour, baking powder and salt.
Then, cream together room temperature margarine, sugar and brown sugar until it resembles a soft dough.
A little bit of history: After a little bit of research around the web from newspapers and Eat Like Walt, I found that the tea cakes were developed after World War II. So to keep to the ingredients of that time period, I chose to use margarine. I also tried butter, and while they were still delicious, they changed the flavor slightly. But feel free to use butter when in a pinch.
Once creamed, alternate the addition of the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture.
Then, fill the lined pan ¾ full. I filled it with 2 ounces (4 tablespoons) of batter, using this 1-ounce scoop twice.
Finally, bake, cool, and glaze!
If you’re ever in the area, make sure to visit Martino’s Bakery and pick up a dozen (or two) of their original tea cakes!
Martino’s Bakery
335 N. Victory Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91502
Tel: 818-842-0715
https://www.martinosbakery.com
Martino's Bakery Original Tea Cakes (Copycat Recipe)
Ingredients
Tea Cake
- 1/4 cup instant dry milk or milk powder
- 3/4 cup whole buttermilk, shaken, room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 6 tablespoons margarine, cubed, room temperature
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Glaze
- 3 tablespoons margarine
- 4 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 drop yellow liquid food color (optional)
- 2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- Dash of salt
Instructions
Tea Cake
- Heat oven to 300°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread the dry milk/milk powder in a thin layer onto the parchment paper. Heat in the oven for 5 minutes, until golden brown.
- Stir the browned milk powder with the buttermilk in a small bowl until mostly dissolved.
- Turn the oven up to 350°F. Line a brownie bar pan with standard round cupcake liners.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the margarine and sugars on medium-high speed until it resembles a soft dough, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Reduce the speed to low and add the egg and vanilla. Mix until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add about a third of the flour mixture followed by half of the buttermilk. Mix until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the second third of the flour mixture followed by the remaining buttermilk. Mix until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the remaining flour mixture. Mix until just a few streaks of flour remains. Using a rubber spatula, stir any remaining streaks of flour into the batter by hand.
- Fill each cavity of the pan 3/4 full (2 fluid ounces or 4 tablespoons). Bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Once cooled, make the glaze.
Glaze
- In a medium saucepan, heat the margarine on medium until melted. Add the water and brown sugar and stir using a whisk until the sugar has dissolved. Do not boil.
- Turn off the stove and stir in the vanilla and food coloring (if using). Whisk in the powdered sugar and salt. Glaze should be slightly thickened and shiny.
- Dip the tops of the cooled tea cakes in the glaze, allowing excess to drip off. Place on a cooling rack set on top of a baking sheet to allow the glaze to set and harden.
- If at any time the glaze in the saucepan begins to harden, reheat over low heat while stirring with a whisk until a thin and dippable glaze consistency is reached.
Notes
Glaze adapted from Eat Like Walt
This recipe has no association with Martino’s Bakery. I am just a huge fan of the original tea cakes and wanted to recreate it in my home kitchen. Any resemblance to the actual recipe is purely coincidental.
Note: This page contains affiliate links that help make The PKP Way possible. Should you choose to purchase anything via those links, I will receive a small commission paid by Amazon, not you.
What a great recipe!
These look amazing! When you said nutty caramel taste I wanted to reach through the screen and try one!
Martinos has the best!!! This is great now that we live in Texas. Thanks!
Yay! I’m so glad you’ll be able to enjoy it in Texas :)
These are absolutely gorgeous! Would love to have one of these with a cup of my favorite tea.
These tea cakes look so cute. Loving the sound of the glaze
I love copycat recipes, and these tea cakes look incredible! I can’t wait to try them!
Not only are these adorable, but they look like the perfect amount of sweetness to go with a cup of tea or coffee. Can’t wait to try them! Thanks for giving us on the East coast a taste of California!
These looks light as air and that delicate glaze looks yum! I have never seen tea cakes like this but can’t wait to try them!
I grew up in Burbank enjoying these yummy tea cakes on special occasions. Now that I live in Orange County it’s a bit of a drive, so it’s been a year since I bought a dozen and ate half! I can’t wait to try this recipe, thanks for sharing!
I’m so excited for you to try them! I hope you enjoy :)
I understand they will ship them. I WISH people wouldn’t rate the recipe UNTIL they’ve baked and eaten them.
I made them recently and I’m not sure if I maybe went wrong somewhere in the process. The tea cakes came out ALOT drier and heavier(?) (not sure if that’s the right word, dense but not moist at all).
Don’t get me wrong, this recipe is still delicious, it’s just not exactly a copycat. But then again, maybe I missed a step or something. Hope this helped a little?
I too made these and they didn’t taste like Martino’s Bakery tea cakes. Not moist and lighter texture like Martino’s. They weren’t horrible, but I was disappointed because I was hoping they’d be more the real deal.
Mine came out the same – I’m glad I saw your post. Definitely not a copycat of Martinos, which I grew up eating. The flavor and texture are ok, but I would not make them again. Though I have to hand it to the baker for trying. I would be interested in a tweak…
If you live on the east coast – I’m in northwest Florida – the closest thing I have found that tastes like Martinos teacakes are Publix grocery store brand vanilla flavored chiffon cakes in the bakery – two little cakes to a package.
just found this I also grew up in Burbank and would always go to Martino’s for these .
So adorable and delicious! Love the square pan!
Love how soft and fluffy these are. Can’t wait to try them!
Why are people commenting and giving this recipe 5 Stars when no one appears to have actually MADE the teacakes?
Am I missing something?
I can’t speak for my readers nor do I have control over how they engage with my posts. This recipe might have been something they’ve been looking for for a while and they finally found it. Or, they could be frequent readers who enjoy trying my recipes. All I can say is that I tested this recipe 10 times before I decided it was good enough to be shared on my site. I hope you give it a try!
Hello. Well I am so shocked that there are people not liking your tea cakes. I l have lived a few miles from Martinis bakery in Burbank, Ca for years. I have had a fair share of these wonderful little cakes in my lifetime!! This recipe is a copy cat of these little gems. Your recipe is spot on! You couldn’t have gotten any closer to the real thing. I’m sorry you get such negative remarks! They are wonderful… thanks for the recipe… Bobbie
Thank you for the SWEET comment :) I’m so glad you loved the recipe!
I made these and I must say they are the best!
These are by far some of the best tea cakes ever. When we moved out of state. I missed having tea cakes around, so I am happy to have this recipe. Can’t wait to try it!
I’m so excited for you to try it :D
Made these twice already and omg so so good! never had the ones from the bakery but wow that toasted milk powder really adds a ton of flavor. Thank you so much!
I’m so glad you enjoy them! Isn’t it amazing how much flavor the toasted milk powder adds? :)
I’m making these tonight! I’m very fascinated by the toasted milk powder, very neat. I’ve never had the originals either (even though I’ve been wanting to try them for ages!) Would you say the flavor is pretty darn close? I will let you know how they turn out!
The toasted milk powder is a must and makes all the difference! I tested 10 batches to get them as close to the original as possible :)
So I tried this today. While they taste yummy, they didn’t really rise and the middles are very gummy. I’ve never had a cake turn out that way. My baking powder isn’t expired but maybe I need to buy a new container? Also, I found browning the milk powder, it’s hard to spread out but I did the bets I could, it didn’t really brown evenly but I’m not sure that mattered. Anyway, I think I need to try these again.
Hmmmm…for the gumminess, were the cakes cooked all the way through before removing from the oven? Did you transfer the cakes from the pan to a cooling rack 5 minutes after they came out of the oven or did you let them cool in the pan?
To make the milk powder easily spreadable, I would use a small spoon like a coffee spoon. With the powder in the spoon, gently sprinkle the powder over the parchment-lined baking sheet. As for the uneven browning, your oven may have hot spots. To fix this, about half way through the browning, rotate the pan so that the milk powder will evenly brown. Even browning is very important for the flavor!
I hope these tips help! I do hope you give it a second chance. I’d love to know your experience the second time around.
Thanks for the tips! They were definitely cooked all the way through and I did allow them to sit for 5 minutes at least before taking them out of the pan.
I absolutely love Martino’s Tea Cakes. I was just in CA a few months ago and had to have them. Now living in Atlanta I don’t have access. Not much of a baker and these look a bit challenging, but I may give it a try. Do you know any other bakeries or names that I might find similar tea cakes in my area.
Unfortunately, I haven’t heard of any other bakeries that can match Martino’s tea cakes. I’d encourage you to try the recipe so that you can enjoy them at home :) I tried to be as thorough in my directions as possible so that even non-bakers can be successful. I’m here if you have any questions about the recipe and/or need further clarification!
I am SO happy that I found this recipe! Having grown up in the Burbank area tea cakes were part of my childhood! Living out of state for the last 24 years has made me miss some items I can only get in Cali. This recipe is spot on and my family LOVED these tea cakes! I went to the store and got all the ingredients just to get home and realize that I had no parchment paper. No worries, I just put the milk on my baking sheet and then when it was toasted/cooled poured onto a paper plate in order to get it all in the buttermilk. My first batch I leveled off my scoop which made for a smaller cake so the next go round I made sure I used a round scoop of batter which was just the right amount. THANK YOU so very much for working to perfect this recipe and sharing with all of us who have missed these Marino’s tea cakes!!!
Also…I doubled the batch (because I knew 12 wasn’t going to be enough!) and the recipe turned out fine doubling it. My family has already requested that I make more <3
Thank you, Michelle for your super sweet comment :) Comments like these make the recipe testing process so much more rewarding!
I made these today! I ate these a lot when I was a kid. The recipe and glaze worked perfectly. I did violate one thing – I used a mini muffin tin. I am using them for a Christmas tea and thought that size would be better. It worked great. I baked them at the same temp for about 13-14 minutes. Thanks so much for this great retro recipe!
Thank you so much for your sweet comment. I’m so glad you enjoyed them and that I was able to bring back a little nostalgia :) I love the idea of serving them for Christmas tea! Happy holidays :D
I made these and they were delicious! For some reason they gave me a corn bread taste.. I’m thinking maybe because I didn’t brown the milk powder enough? Also they came out pretty dense. Martino’s tea cakes are more fluffy then what I got but maybe I over mixed the dough? Let me know if you have any tips. Thank you :)
There are a lot of tips included in the post that may offer some guidance regarding browning the milk powder. Regarding over mixing, be sure to follow the directions in the recipe carefully, paying close attention to the speed of the mixer and when to mix by hand. I’d love to know if that helps :) Let me know if you have more questions!
These are just about as close to Martino’s originals as you could have gotten, I think. Delicious! Your instructions are so well written that, even though there are a lot of steps, it was all easy to follow. I did wind up with a lot of extra glaze. Now I’m looking around for something else to put it on… and the cat is slowly backing away.
Thank you for the perfect copy at recipe, tastes just like the real thing! Could you please advise how you would incorporate ingredients for a lemon version?
In the glaze I add a little bit of fresh lemon juice.
As a young girl, go visit our relatives in California. After church, we could go to Martino’s for tea cakes. Whenever we visit or our family comes to Texas and visit us, There is always a visit to Martino’s for at least four dozen tea cakes.
I have tried different recipes. This one is the closest to the original recipe. Thank you for posting it! Since March I’ve made the tea cakes five times.
LOVE Martino’s Tea Cakes and am so happy I found this!! Made these a couple times now and they turned out similar to the originals! Definitely substituted margarine for butter only because butter is better quality and doesn’t make that much of a difference taste wise. I really wish I could find a glaze that hardens similarly to the originals. This one and another one i found online don’t ever completely harden it always is a little tender.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Great recipe! These are so fluffy and taste so close to the real thing. The glaze is perfect and so delicious! However, when I tried to double the recipe, some did not rise correctly and became caramelized and burnt on the edges, while the batch made as a single turned out just fine. Do you have any tips to prevent this when doubling the recipe? Thanks!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe! As for doubling the recipe, I would make sure not to over mix the batter (we tend to do that when doubling a batch because there’s so much batter!) and to rotate them halfway through baking to ensure even baking (If you’re using two racks, make sure to also switch the pans – top pan goes to the bottom rack and bottom pan goes to the top rack). Hope that helps!
Can I use regular milk instead of dry milk?!! I couldn’t seem to find it at the store, but based on these reviews I’m dying to bake them tonight!
Unfortunately, if you were to use regular milk, the taste wouldn’t be the same and you would be introducing too much moisture into the batter. Dry milk (aka instant dry milk) can usually be found in the baking aisle.
Is the buttermilk required also known as Bulgarian cultured? I can’t seem to find regular buttermilk, only reduced fat 1.5 %
I used to live near Martino’s and get these all the time. I have since moved away and had a craving for them the other night and found this recipe. Let me tell you they are spot on! Thank you for the recipe, I have been enjoying these for the past few days now with my morning coffee. Definitely making these again when I’m feeling nostalgic for some Martino’s.
Thank you for your sweet comment, Alma. It has made my day :) I’m so glad you can still enjoy a little taste of Martino’s from afar.
Omg so I finally got the powdered milk :) and they came out so good! They look kind of pale in color compared to the ones you made, but they still taste delicious! So soft and fluffy, the glaze really compliments it:)
I’m so glad you were able to source the powdered milk! And even more glad that you enjoyed the recipe :) Thank you for returning to leave a follow-up comment!
I’ve been a fan of Martino’s tea cakes for over 50 years. While this recipe makes good cupcakes, I think they only resemble the original. The cake is the right texture and it’s close, but the glaze is too sweet.
Thanks for giving them a try and sharing your thoughts :)
Hi, I grew up with Martinos tea cakes as a favorite treat. Thank you so much for all the work you put in to create this recipe! My family is dairy and egg free so I will be attempting to make these with egg replacer and toasted dry coconut milk powder.
My big question is how to adapt the instructions as I don’t have a stand mixer. I do have a good powerful hand mixer, but no paddle attachment, just beaters.
Any advice is much appreciated!
A hand mixer should be just fine. Just be sure to use the noted speed and avoid over mixing. I’d be interested to know how they turn out with your substitutions :)
Hi! I love this recipe. The cakes taste amazing. I made it twice already! Just a quick question; When I store in an airtight container, the cakes turn soggy. What’s the best way to store them, so that they are fresh the day after?
Thank you for your sweet comment, Rabia. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the recipe :) The cakes are probably getting soggy because they have a lot of moisture and when stored in an airtight container, the moisture has no place to go. Instead of an airtight container, I would put them in a non-airtight container, like a cardboard box or a container covered with a paper towel, stored at room temperature. That way, the moisture is able to escape. While it won’t be as fresh as the day you bake them, they at least won’t become soggy. For longer storage, you can also freeze them in an airtight container and thaw on the counter as many or as little as you like at at time :)
Hi! I have never had a tea cake and my friends birthday was this last weekend and she said her favorite treat is a tea cake. I found your recipe and even bought the brownie pan for them. I followed the directions to a tee and when my friend tried them she said they were amazing! She said she has had the tea cakes from Martini’s and that these were just as good. The only modification I made was I used butter instead of margarine. I was so happy that I was able to recreate these for her. Thank you!
Thank you so so much for your sweet comment, Jennifer! I’m tickled pink that you were able to give your friend her favorite treat on her special day :) The next time I think about giving up after rounds and rounds of recipe testing, I will remember your comment (and others like yours) and why it’s all worth it in the end!
That look so yummy and soft. Thank you so much for the recipe.
I made these and one person thought I bought Martino’s. I made exactly as written but may I have browned the powdered milk a minute too long. I may try adding an almond extract. For the glaze, I did not add water and used 1/4 cup light brown sugar, and a teaspoon of dried milk powder. It was perfect. I use a hand mixer and stored them refrigerator overnight. I froze a batch also and they are even more moist a day or two later. I’ve been craving these since we moved away from Burbank. They haven’t been shipping during Covid. Thank you for the recipe!
Thank you for your kind and sweet comment! I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe and now have a little piece of Burbank with you :D
These look adorable!! I’m so glad this showed up in my Pinterest feed today!
Patty, I love you. Thank you for figuring this out. I don’t know how you knew to toast dry milk but I am impressed and my craving, satisfied. Thank you :)
Thank you for such a sweet comment! I’m so glad you’ll forever be able to satisfy your craving whenever it strikes again :)