excerpts:
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One of the most crucial elements of the coffee cake is the scent. Whenever the kitchen bakes it, you can smell the cinnamon and sugar wafting across campus. “That’s really one of the first things which happens with the coffee cake, as it goes out,” Singh says. “Everybody gets that smell and the taste buds are already kind of salivating. They’re just waiting to dig into it.”
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Guirguis leads me into the food storage area at the school’s cafeteria. Amid industrial-size boxes and tins of granola, canned fruit, salsa and black beans, you’ll find plenty of 51% Whole Grain Coffee Cake Mix from Buena Vista Foods. Each 4.75-pound bag — which contains a blend of whole wheat flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, unbleached wheat flour, nonfat milk, modified food starch, double acting baking powder, salt, soybean oil, cinnamon and nutmeg — makes 48 servings.
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Guirguis adds eggs, water, oil and a little bit of vinegar, to enhance the smell and because, “It breaks the taste little bit.” Nearby, you’ll find 1.25-pound bags of the topping, also from Buena Vista Foods.
The coffee cake at Marina del Rey Middle School in Los Angeles, circa August 2018. (Photo by Elina Shatkin for LAist)
