For me, gooey butter cake is a holiday staple. It always seemed to pop up on Christmas morning when I was a kid, and it was the perfect fix to keep me going after a short night of sleep and the slow extinguishing of excitement that came after opening gifts and emptying my stocking.
This cake, like toasted ravioli, provel cheese, and me, is native to St. Louis, Missouri, USA. The probably accurate legend is that, in the late 1930s or early 1940s, some professional baker made the cake by accident when he fucked up the recipe for a real cake. The result, however, was a miraculous new creation, rich and buttery with a texture similar to a very slightly underbaked brownie or a very slightly overset cheesecake — firm enough to hold its shape, but just barely, with a very slight chew.
This obviously became a hit, and others quickly began to mimic it — and it grew popular enough that today you can buy it at a number of bakeries and any of the major chains of grocery stores in the metro area (Schnucks and Dierbergs are the major players, for those out of the loop). The store-bought varieties are great, but there's nothing like homemade.
The cake evolved into two varieties: The original version is made with a yeast-raised dough at the base, a bit like a danish, with filling on top made from butter, eggs, sugar, and flour; the other uses cream cheese and (usually) boxed cake mix — this is typically what a home baker might prepare. Whichever tack they take, commercial bakeries like those at Schnucks or Dierbergs might add a little corn syrup to round things out.
To develop my own version of the cake, I pored over truckload of existing recipes from various St. Louisan sources, and I made an embarrassing number of test cakes. One recipe came from a 1994 cookbook published by the Junior League of St. Louis; perhaps the definitive version. Another was my aunt's — a simple boxed cake mix variety spiked with a little almond extract. An elder friend in St. Louis jotted down for me, from memory, the recipe card she keeps in her kitchen — hers was a classic, but nevertheless unique in calling for (optional) pecans. I pulled many others from hometown sources published on the internet or in the papers. And I looked at — but did not place any trust whatsoever in — apocryphal sources from nonnatives, such as the food section of The New York Times, which called for room temperature milk (barf), or the Milk Bar cookbook, which turned it into a pie with an oat-laced crust (very tasty, but absolutely not gooey butter cake). I took what I learned from each recipe and interpolated a slightly new version, and I added some tricks of my own.
So if you're reading this, you are reading a top-secret recipe with a possibly controversial approach. Maybe this is a new, nonbinary, third strain of cake. Life, uhhh ... finds a way.
I thought the yeast-dough variety was way too fussy, and frankly not worth the hassle. Ain't nobody got time for that. And while I have nothing against a good box of Betty Crocker, I thought I could get something better if I went from scratch and very slightly tweaked the proportions. I wanted to be the president and commander-in-chief of this cake.
For me, corn syrup yielded an outright irresponsible texture — so naturally, I incorporated that into my version (fuck the cake police, right?). And I learned somewhere along the way in my journey as a baker that milk powder is "the MSG of baking." So I thought "Why the hell not?" and threw some of that into the mix, too. (I learned afterward that this is a trick Milk Bar uses. I'd like to say they copied me, but I'll use convergent evolution to excuse myself.)
You'll see that the result is a bus crash of many of these recipes, because I am a bus-crash kind of baker [complimentary].
What I don't think I saw in any of these recipes (or maybe I did ... I read so many, and it was so long ago) was a kind of shortbready crust that comes out chewy and a little firm, but still provides a solid foundation for the gooey filling. I hope I can take credit for this addition, but am humble enough to understand that I can't possibly be the first person to have thought of this. No one is ever the first person to think of anything, guys.
Every St. Louisan seems to have their own family recipe for gooey butter cake; I now submit mine. It's been a closely guarded secret for years, but I decided today was the day to share it (marked confidential, of course). Because I woke up this morning and decided to change the world.
Highly Confidential Gooey Butter Cake
Ingredients
For the base
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp milk powder
- 4 tbsp cold unsalted butter, quartered
For the gooey
- 3 tbsp plus 1 tsp light corn syrup
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp water
- 12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 4 oz (1/2 brick) cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 cup milk powder
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup plus 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
To finish
- 1 tbsp confectioner's sugar
BAKER'S NOTE: You can omit the milk powder from both the gooey and the base. But please don't do that.
Directions
Get ahold of a 13" x 9" baking dish; I use a clear glass dish, but I guess you could use a metal one — in St. Louis some folks bake these in disposable pans from the grocery store, so you don't need to get fancy. You're doing great, sweetie.
Prepare the pan by flattening a sheet of parchment paper across the bottom of the dish and creasing inward at the corners, so that all four sides are smooth (or smooth-ish). The parchment paper should protrude out of the dish at least a half inch — enough for you to grab the cake and remove it from the dish.
If you prefer, prepare the dish with a parchment sling instead by running one sheet of parchment lengthwise across the bottom of the dish with handles on either side, and a second sheet of parchment widthwise on top. You could also probably make a foil sling, provided you grease the foil well with butter. Or just butter a dish and don't bother with parchment or foil, or just use a nonstick pan, or whatever. You can slice and serve it directly from the pan if you want. I honestly don't give a shit what you do, just do something. I believe in you.
Prepare the base
In a small food processor (or small bowl of a large food processor), pulse flour, sugar, salt, and milk powder until blended.
Drop in cold butter and process until an even, crumbly mixture forms.
Take mixture and pat gently into the bottom of the prepared baking dish to form an even layer. (Don't pat too hard or you'll end up with a goddamn cracker.) It'll be a little thin, but the goo is the star here.
Place that whole situation in the refrigerator.
Yell at everyone in your home about how good the cake is going to be. If you live alone, go to the neighbors and yell at them, or you can yell at a couple of strangers on the street provided they do not interpret this as a threat to their health and safety. You can also yell at coworkers or family/friends on the telephone. You can yell via text message but the results will not be as good.
ALTERNATE AND MORE FUN METHOD: Whisk dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Allow butter to come to room temperature, then mash that shit together with your hands. You may combine this step with the yelling step.
Ready the goo
Preheat the oven to 350º F.
In a small bowl or cup, use a fork or whatever to whisk together corn syrup, vanilla, and water. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment (or in a large bowl with a hand mixer nearby; I'm not your supervisor), combine butter, cream cheese, sugar, salt, and milk powder.
Whip at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, just under or at 3 minutes (do not over-whip, or the cake will turn out weird. It'll be fine-tasting, but weird-looking with mountainous edges and a sunken-in center).
Scrape down bowl, add in the egg, and mix at low speed until everything is as homogenous as the audience at the Country Music Awards.
With mixer on low, alternate between adding the prepared corn syrup mixture and the flour, scraping down bowl as needed, until all ingredients are incorporated and mixture is once again homogenous, but this time as homogenous as the principal cast of seasons 1 and 2 of NCIS (before Cote de Pablo joined).
Assemble the cake
Grab the dish with the prepared crust from refrigerator and take it out of the refrigerator and place it on the counter. You could also place it on a tabletop, a butcher block, a chair, on the floor, or even on your lap if you've been sitting down this whole time. This is all about making you feel seen and heard.
Using a rubber scraper, transfer the gooey butter topping into the baking dish. It will come out in giant dollops; this is normal and you should celebrate it.
Smooth the topping out into as even a layer as possible, trying not to disturb the crust beneath. (But it's OK if you do a little, because in the oven, everything it will melt into a totally flat and even layer and turn yellowish. This bodily change in the cake over time may remind you of your own mortality. Don't think about this too much or the cake will turn out sad and in its 40s, having accomplished nothing real or lasting in its lifetime.)
Transfer assembled cake to the preheated oven. Bake for 20 minutes, rotate, and bake for 15-20 minutes longer. While cake is baking, kneel or squat down in front of the oven and look inside; every so often, turn toward the camera, and, with a slightly concerned look, say something charming with an inscrutably thick regional accent, like they do on The Great British Bake-Off. You might hear kooky but tense music — this is nondiegetic and can be ignored.
Remove the cake from the oven when the edges have turned golden brown. The rest of the cake will be pale and yellow as the November sun. The center should no longer jiggle, or have but the faintest of jiggles. If you're worried and have an instant-read thermometer handy, the center should read at least 160º F. That's called food safety.
Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely. I don't have anything funny to say here.
Place in refrigerator and chill for 1–2 hours. While cake is chilling, play Pokémon again and see if you can trade a Geodude for a Rowlet.
Remove cake from refrigerator and, using the excess parchment paper, lift it out of the baking dish along the long edges. Place on any of the flat surfaces as described in previous steps.
Sift confectioner's sugar over the cake in a light, even layer.
Slice the cake into 18 rectangular pieces. Remember that squares are also rectangles, but the pieces of your cake won't be perfectly square unless you fuck up.
Serve and enjoy the crap out of this cake. Love yourself. Yell at the neighbors again. You're a champion and you're worth it.
