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"These,” Rev. Junius Dillard says, “are not tea cakes from a book,” holding up a flour-dusted disc that looks like a cross between a sugar cookie and a biscuit. “These are what you’d call ‘grandmamma’ tea cakes.”

Grandmamma indeed. When they were first married, Houma natives Dillard, 70, and his wife Gloriastine, were given her grandmother’s tea cake recipe. They started baking them to support the church that Dillard, then a young minister, led. The successful business venture today sells more than 300 dozen tea cakes a week in a handful of local venues.

Dillard has become a fixture in the Capital City—he’s known for cheerfully hitting state buildings with his cartful of delicacies on pay day—but there’s more behind his wares than meets the eye. The homespun tea cake, soft in texture, slightly sweet and tinged with vanilla, occupies a significant spot in the food memory of many southerners and African Americans, says Elbert Mackey, an Austin businessman and Minden native who launched the Tea Cake Project last year.

“Everywhere I traveled, people had stories about tea cakes from their childhood, but it seemed like this was dying out in the younger generation,” Mackey says. Remembering his “Aunt Maggie’s warm, sometimes lemony tea cakes after family dinners” prompted the launch of teacakeproject.com, which invited recollections about the baked good from around the country.

Dillard agrees that tea cakes inspire nostalgia.

“I once had a young lady buy some from me to take to her grandfather, who wasn’t doing well,” he says. “He sent her looking for tea cakes, and when he tasted mine, he said they reminded him of the ones he had growing up.”

Most days start similarly for Dillard and his staff of six. By hand, they mix, roll and punch out hundreds of the round goodies, which he sells the same day for $5 a dozen. They also create hand-formed sweet potato pies, crescent-shaped pastries filled with homemade mashed and seasoned innards. It takes two days to complete the pies, Dillard says, because he’s fussy about letting the hot filling cool overnight.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a vendor with such antique preparation methods, or such an old-time system of sales. Dillard sells his goods face-to-face on a six-day route that takes him to regular stops like LSU, Southern University, Earl K. Long Memorial Hospital, downtown state and local government buildings, barber shops, beauty salons and three public markets. People along his route expect him. “I guess I’ve got them spoiled,” he says.

Over the past 30 years, he’s sold enough tea cakes and sweet potato pies to not only support his family, but to raise funds to help build five Church of God churches in Louisiana and Atlanta.

As for how to enjoy the sweet biscuit, Dillard says some people top them with fruit. He argues the best way is warmed with a slice of melted cheese. But most of his customers, he says, prefer them simpler.

Straight out of the bag.