Gooey Butter Cake

 

Below is an article about a dessert known as Gooey Butter Cake:



GOOEY BUTTER CAKE

The city of St. Louis, Missouri is known for the creation of several popular dishes and desserts. One of the latter is a dessert that was created nearly a century ago called the Gooey Butter Cake.

Gooey Butter Cake is a flat and dense cake made from wheat cake flour, butter, sugar and eggs. Upon completion, the dessert is usually dusted with powdered sugar. The cake usually stand at nearly an inch tall. And while sweet and rich, it also stood somewhat firm, and is able to be cut into pieces similarly to a brownie. Gooey butter cake is generally served as a type of coffee cake and not as a formal dessert cake. There are two distinct versions of the gooey butter - a traditional cake usually created by bakers and a version made from cream cheese and yellow cake mix. As far as I know, there are two origin versions of the Gooey Butter Cake.

In one version, a German-American baker in the St. Louis area named John Hoffman owned the bakery where the cake was originally created by accident. The story is there were two types of butter "smears" used in his bakery - a gooey butter and a deep butter. The gooey butter was used as an adhesive for pastries like Danish rolls and Stollens. The deep butter was used for deep butter coffee cakes. Hoffman had hired a new baker, who was supposed to make deep butter cakes. But the new baker got the butter smears mixed up. Hoffman did not catch the mistake until after the cakes came out of the proof box. Rather than throw them away, Hoffman went ahead and baked them. Hoffman had no choice. The baking mistake had occurred during the Great Depression, when baking ingredients supplies were low. The new cake sold so well that Hoffman kept baking and selling them and soon, so did the other bakers in the St. Louis area.

The second version of the Gooey Butter Cake's creation also occurred during the 1930s in St. Louis. Another St. Louis baker named Fred Heimburger remembers that someone - he never named Hoffman - had accidentally created the Gooey Butter Cake during the Depression. According to Heimburger, the cake became a popular hit and local acquired taste. After serving in the Korean War, Heimburger worked as a baker at the old Doerring Bakery, where he learned his trade and learned how to make the Gooey Butter Cake. He liked the cake so much that he tried to promote it by presenting samples of the cake to bakers outside of St. Louis, when he traveled. These bakers liked the dessert, but they could not get their customers to purchase it, regarding it as looking like too much like a mistake, and "a flat gooey mess". And so it remained as a regional favorite for many decades. Heimburger opened his own bakery in 1954 and his interpretation of the cake, along with the bakery, became a local institution.

There are other stories surrounding the cake's creation, but none have been historically verified. The St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission includes a recipe for the cake on its website, calling it "one of St. Louis' popular, quirky foods". The Commission's recipe for the cake includes yellow cake batter and cream cheese, unlike the original recipe. Gooey butter cake is also commonly known outside of the St. Louis area as "Ooey Gooey Butter Cake," due to its popularization by TV celebrity and cooking show host, Paula Deen.

Below is a recipe for the classic Gooey Butter Cake from the Taste Better From Scratch website:


Gooey Butter Cake

Ingredients:

Crust
1 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 Tablespoons + 1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/3 cup warm milk
6 Tablespoons butter - room temperature
1 large egg
pinch of salt
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Topping
3 Tablespoons light corn syrup
2 Tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
12 Tablespoons butter
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
pinch of salt
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour


Preparation

Crust
*In a small bowl combine yeast, 1/4 tsp sugar and warm milk. Set aside for 5 minutes.
*In a stand mixer cream together the butter and 3 Tbsp of sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
*Add the yeast mixture, egg, salt and flour and mix on low until combined.
*Increase speed and mix/knead for about 7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and has pulled away from the sides of the bowl.
*Press the dough into an ungreased 9x13'' baking dish. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 2 hours.

Topping
*Whisk together light corn syrup, water and vanilla until combined.
*In a separate bowl cream together the butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
*Add egg, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Add a little of the flour, alternating with adding the corn syrup mixture, until both are combined.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
*Drop large spoonfuls of topping all over the risen dough. Use a spatula to gently smooth it into an even layer.
*Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the top has set and is golden brown. The center should still seem soft when it comes out of the oven. Allow to cool on a wire cooling rack to room temperature.
*Serve sprinkled with powdered sugar. This cake is best enjoyed the day it is made.