{"id":2411,"date":"2011-06-25T00:10:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-25T07:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/?p=2411"},"modified":"2012-09-03T17:02:58","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T00:02:58","slug":"los-angeles-city-schools-coffee-cake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/los-angeles-city-schools-coffee-cake\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles City Schools Coffee Cake"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LAUSD<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Well, my blog is one year old today!\u00a0 To celebrate, I am going back to the beginning.\u00a0 My inaugural post<\/a> was about the Sweet Rolls that were sold at Nutrition at Paul Revere Junior High<\/a> and Palisades High Schools<\/a>.\u00a0 Those cinnamon brown sugar delights were my preferred “Nutrition” time treat.\u00a0 There was another choice, however, and kids were of one stripe or the other.\u00a0 It was either Sweet Rolls or Coffee Cake.\u00a0 Not both and no switching.\u00a0 Me, I had to have that sweet yeasty risen dough filled with cinnamon and brown sugar and perfumed with nutmeg.\u00a0 No quick bread for me.\u00a0 And not for my friends Ami and Jackie either.\u00a0 We were Sweet Roll students all the way.\u00a0 Not that there is anything wrong with the Coffee Cake.\u00a0 Not at all.\u00a0 On the east coast it is known as Crumb Cake, and for easterners it is a very big deal. But for us west coast babies, it was yeast risen Sweet Rolls every day, all the way.<\/p>\n

\"LA<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the years I have come across several versions of the Los Angeles City Schools recipe.\u00a0 Of the two I have seen most frequently, one was published in The Los Angeles Times, and the other comes with the imprimatur of the Los Angeles Unified School District Food Services Branch, Food Service Handbook<\/em>.\u00a0 While the finished L.A. Times Coffee Cake is remarkably close to the Food Service Handbook version, the Times’ use of butter and sour cream call its authenticity into question.\u00a0 A school recipe has to use food service proportions, ingredients suited to a school district budget and must take into account storage and ease of use for cafeteria workers.\u00a0 The Food Service Handbook recipe calls for oil rather than butter, and instead of sour cream, a mixture of vinegar and non-fat dry milk.\u00a0 Sounds like school to me.<\/p>\n

When I posted my LAUSD Sweet Roll recipe a year ago, my niece Bree of Pizza y Paella<\/a> commented that she remembered a Coffee Cake from the Culver City Schools Wednesday Early Bird Breakfast “…They served a nice warm, fluffy cake with a half inch thick topping of brown sugar.”\u00a0 So I guess the students of the Los Angeles City School District were not the only ones to enjoy Coffee Cake.<\/p>\n

I have a couple of notes about this Coffee Cake.<\/p>\n

#1\u00a0 The classic recipe for a Coffee Cake like this calls for either sour cream or buttermilk.\u00a0 Don’t be put off by the non-fat dry milk, water and vinegar in this recipe.\u00a0 Combine those ingredients, and you’ve made you own buttermilk substitute.\u00a0 Honest.\u00a0 Again, sounds like the thrifty Cafeteria workers to me.<\/p>\n

\"Nutmeg\"<\/a>#2 DON’T SKIMP ON THE NUTMEG.\u00a0 NOT HERE.\u00a0 NOT EVER.\u00a0 Don’t buy the pre-ground stuff.\u00a0 There is just no comparison to fresh ground nutmeg.\u00a0 Grate it fresh as you need it.\u00a0 Go out and buy a nutmeg grater.\u00a0 No need to get a fancy battery powered job.\u00a0 MicroPlane<\/a> makes a nice one.\u00a0 And the old-fashioned tin ones are as good now as when they were first invented.\u00a0 You can hang them inside your spice cabinet and they have a little storage compartment for the piece of nutmeg you are using.\u00a0 Whole nutmeg is easy to find these days, and specialty spice purveyors such as Penzeys Spices<\/a> and Savory Spice Shop<\/a> sell wonderful nutmeg.<\/p>\n

#3 This streusel recipe, being of food service provenance, calls for oil.\u00a0 But I couldn’t do it.\u00a0 I could not help myself.\u00a0 I substituted unsalted butter for a fluffier, more tasty streusel.\u00a0 Oh, one more thing.\u00a0 I doubled the amount of streusel.\u00a0 Yes, I did.\u00a0 So if you, like me, are a butter streusel loving Pali High Grad,\u00a0follow the variation at the end of the recipe.<\/p>\n

I hope you enjoy this Coffee Cake.\u00a0 And when you make it, email me a photo of you and your Coffee Cake.\u00a0 I’d love to display it in my Readers’ Gallery<\/a>.\u00a0 Dig out your High School yearbook, make this Coffee Cake, call an old friend and take a stroll down Memory Lane.<\/p>\n

\"1970<\/a>

1970 Pali High Cafeteria Staff<\/p><\/div>\n

LAUSD Coffee Cake<\/em><\/h4>\n

As printed in the Los Angeles Unified School District Food Services Branch, Food Service Handbook<\/em><\/p>\n

makes 18 servings<\/h6>\n

For the Batter<\/em>
\n3 3\/4 cups all purpose flour
\n1\/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. non-fat dry milk
\n1 1\/4 tsp. salt
\n1 tsp. nutmeg
\n1 1\/2 tsp. cinnamon
\n3 1\/2 tsp. baking powder
\n3\/4 tsp. baking soda
\n2 tbsp. vinegar
\n1 1\/2 cups water
\n1 cup plus 2 tbsp. salad oil
\n1 1\/4 cups brown sugar, packed
\n1 cup granulated sugar
\n2 eggs<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the Topping<\/em>
\n3\/4 cup plus 3 tbsp. all purpose flour
\n1\/4 cup plus 1 tbsp. brown sugar, packed
\n1\/4 cup granulated sugar
\ndash salt
\n1\/4 tsp plus 1\/8 tsp. cinnamon
\n1\/4 tsp plus 1\/8 tsp. nutmeg
\n1\/4 cup vegetable oil<\/p>\n

To make the Batter<\/em>
\nIn a bowl, combine flour, dry milk, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda. Set Aside. Combine vinegar and water in a measuring cup. Set Aside.<\/p>\n

In mixer bowl, blend together the oil, brown sugar and granulated sugar on low speed for 1 minute. Add eggs and continue to blend on low speed for 1 minute. While mixer is on low speed, add the dry ingredients alternately with the water and vinegar to oil-sugar mixture. Scrape down bowl, then blend on medium speed for 1 additional minute. Evenly divide batter between two greased 9×9-inch pans. Sprinkle 3\/4 cup topping evenly over batter in each pan.<\/p>\n

To make the Topping<\/em>
\nIn mixer bowl, combine all ingredients except oil. Blend on low speed for 1 minute. Add oil gradually and continue to blend until topping is crumbly.<\/p>\n

Bake until tooth pick comes out clean when inserted in the center of cake.
\nConventional Oven: 375F for 35-55 minutes.
\nConvection Oven: 325 F for 35-40 minutes.<\/p>\n

My streusel variation<\/em>
\nDouble the streusel recipe for a thick topping.\u00a0 To substitute butter for oil, use 12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, total.\u00a0 Cut it into chunks and proceed with streusel directions.<\/p>\n

Baking Notes<\/em>
\n#1 Decrease oven temperature to 350 if you are using black or glass pans.
\n#2 For ease of removal, butter your pans, and line with parchment.\u00a0 Butter the parchment.
\n#3 I used Williams-Sonoma Gold Touch Bakeware<\/a>, and my Coffee Cake was done at 35 minutes.<\/p>\n

Love LA City Schools Sweet Rolls? Click here<\/a> for the recipe.\n<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

I have no affiliation with any product, manufacturer, or site mentioned in this article.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

Note: You can click on any picture to see a slide show!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Well, my blog is one year old today!\u00a0 To celebrate, I am going back to the beginning.\u00a0 My inaugural post was about the Sweet Rolls that were sold at Nutrition at Paul Revere Junior High and Palisades High Schools.\u00a0 Those cinnamon brown sugar delights were my preferred “Nutrition” time treat.\u00a0 There was another choice, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[146,3,59],"tags":[627,295,618,624,620,619,622,621,626,623,630,283,617,10,616,48,628,582,13,629],"class_list":["post-2411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-storia-di-crocetti","category-default","category-recipes","tag-bree","tag-coffee-cake","tag-crumb-cake","tag-food-service-handbook","tag-lausd-coffee-cake","tag-lausd-sweet-rolls","tag-los-angeles-city-schools-coffee-cake","tag-los-angeles-city-schools-sweet-rolls","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-los-angeles-unified-school-district-food-services-branch-food-service-handbook","tag-microplane","tag-nutmeg","tag-pali-high","tag-palisades-high-school","tag-paul-revere-junior-high","tag-penzeys-spices","tag-pizza-y-paella","tag-savory-spice-shop","tag-sweet-rolls","tag-williams-sonoma-gold-touch-bakeware"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pYzzK-CT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2411"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4781,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411\/revisions\/4781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}