Teapot Crumb Cake (Coffee Cake)

Name: Teapot Crumb Cake (Coffee Cake)
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 22 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 1 cup Crisco; 1⅓ cup Granulated Sugar; 2⅔ cup Flour; 1 tsp Baking Soda; 1 tsp Baking Powder; 1 tsp Cinnamon; 1 tsp Allspice; ½ tsp Nutmeg; ¼ tsp Salt; 1 cup Milk; 1 Egg

This family specialty recipe originates over a century ago. Teapot Crumb Cake is a light coffee cake with the tastiest crumb topping!

Jump to Recipe

Teapot Crumb Cake is a light yet delicious coffee cake. Cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg combine perfectly for the spiced cake. The crumb topping is made from Crisco vegetable shortening, flour, and sugar.

I’ve also eaten this cake for breakfast more times than I can count, so it’s more than just dessert. I prefer to eat this treat with a fork. My husband usually holds it like a donut so the utensil doesn’t slow him down. To each their own!

The Recipe from a Teapot on a Covered Wagon

Hold on to your bloomers! This recipe originated with my Great, Great, Great Grandmother. In the 1800s, Mami and Pappy Ebright travelled east from Missouri in a covered wagon with this recipe in a teapot. Mami Ebright (My Great x3 Grandmother) passed the recipe to daughter Mary (my Great x2 Grandmother), who passed it to daughter Sophia (my Great Grandmother), who passed it to daughter Mary Ann (my Grandmother), who passed it to my mother, who passed it to my sister and me.

The recipe used to be called Gingerbread Cake until my sister and I were little. We always called it Crumb Cake due to the crumb topping. (Also, there isn’t any ginger in it, so why would we call it Gingerbread Cake?!) My mom and I figure that somewhere between 1800s Missouri and 1990s Pennsylvania, the ingredients changed due to availability, industrialization, or experimentation. After all, the current recipe calls for Crisco which was only created in 1911, and my Great Grandmother Sophia was born in 1912. Long story short, I sincerely hope everyone loves this treat: the recipe from the teapot.

Recipe Overview

Combine Crisco, flour, and sugar and mix well. Reserve some crumb mixture for topping. Add in baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and salt, then mix. Add milk and egg, and mix thoroughly. Pour batter into a greased pan and sprinkle with reserved crumbs. Bake. Enjoy!

FAQs & Tips

Tip #1: Add or Remove Crumbs to your desire!

The recipe that we used as our base when I was a child used less than half of the crumbs of this recipe. However, my family is a crumb-loving family, and we would always mix up a full second batch of crumbs (Step 2 in the recipe) in order to have extra. We would use the additional amount that we wanted, and the remaining crumbs would be stored until the next time we made the cake. For this page I permanently adjusted the recipe so that you do not need to make an entire second batch in order to have a thick layer of crumbs.

If you want fewer crumbs (and you don’t want to throw out the extra), use the same recipe and directions except: 3/4 cup Crisco, 1 cup Sugar, 2 cups Flour, and reserve 3/4 cup of crumbs after mixing in Step 2. Baking time may be slightly less as well.

Tip #2: Small oven? Lower the rack

The crumb topping in this recipe will begin to toast if it is baked for too long or if the cake is too close to the upper heating elements in the oven. Therefore, this can be problematic in a small oven due to the lack of space. Rather than keeping the rack in the middle of the oven, lower the rack to about 25% height for a smaller oven. This will still keep the pan away from the lower heating elements but also give you more space from the upper heating elements.

Recipe Quick Stats

Cost:

Total Recipe Cost = $3.58 · $0.30 per serving

Nutrition:

Servings: 12

Calories: 342 kcal · Total Fat: 16.9 g · Sodium: 209.3 mg · Total Carb: 43 g · Dietary Fiber: 0.2 g · Protein: 3.8 g

Listed values for cost and nutrition are estimates only. View how we calculate cost and nutritional data here. View our full cost and nutritional disclaimer here.

Print Recipe