Tasty Treat: St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

On Tuesday I wrote to you about friendship and corn bread and the amazing Southern dinner party we attended. Today is all about the dessert I made. Among my friends, I am the dessert maker and I take this honorable role very seriously. I love dessert and I love baking and I especially love a crowd since baking extravagant desserts solely for the hubby and me is a recipe for obesity. Since the dinner was branded a Southern feast, I finally had an excuse to try the St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake Melissa Clark wrote about a few months back in the New York Times food section.

Clark is one of my favorite food writers; I always trust her recipes. However, I have to admit, any recipe with gooey in the title is a siren call to me. I love goo. In fact, when ordering pecan pie, I always ask about the goo to pecan ratio since I would really just like a bowl of goo. Chess Pie is another favorite of mine because it's all lemon/lime scented goo. That being said, I don't like weird, fake tasting goo such as is found in desserts made with unidentifiable ingredients. I like the natural goo that comes from some combination of butter, sugar and a touch of corn syrup.

The SLGBC has all the good parts of goo without the bad. It's comprised of two layers: a yeast dough topped with a less sturdy, well gooey, batter. The bottom, like a pie crust, is really just a vehicle for the top, but it's the perfect accompaniment, adding a nice chew. While Clark writes the SLGBC for her was more of a moist cake, for me it turned out to be one part chewy cake and one part gooey batter topping. I made it the day we ate it and I think that's the secret since the next day, to Clark's point, it was more a moist cake.

I don't usually have tasters beyond the hubby and baby girl so here are quotes from my friends recorded in real time as they had their first bites:

"Oh my god," munch, munch

"This is the best cake I've ever tasted," mouth full of food, "No, I'm serious, this is so so so good!"

"My doctor would kill me, but I can't stop eating," this from my friend who had Gestational Diabetes.

"Hun, sorry I was so pessimistic. This is really good," said the hubby who'd thought the cake didn't look very special when it came out of the oven.

Baby girl and her friend, baby boy, each ate adult portions because the adults were too busy in cake ecstasy to notice. They should've done something way badder than that, like draw on the walls with sharpie pens.

Convinced? I highly recommend you get together six of your closest friends and feed them this cake!!

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

Adapted (just a bit) from Melissa Clark's New York Times article, Having My Cake and Eating It Too

(This cake, chewy and gooey and moist, easily made my personal top ten list of best Southern cakes. It's second only to the Robert E. Lee Cake (recipe to come.) because my grandmother would kill me if I try to usurp its reigning king. However, she hasn't tried the SLGBC yet...) 

What You'll Need:

For the Yeast Cake - 
3 tbsp Milk at room temperature mixed with 2 tbsp very Warm Water
2 tsp Active Dry Yeast
6 tbsp Unsalted Butter softened
3 tbsp Sugar

1 tsp Salt
1 lg Egg at room temperature
1 3/4 cups White Whole Wheat Flour

For the Gooey Batter -
3 heaping tbsp Light Corn Syrup
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
12 tbsp Unsalted Butter softened
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1 lg Egg at room temperature
1 cup plus 3 tbsp White Whole Wheat Flour

Confectioner's Sugar for dusting

To the warm water and milk mixture add the yeast. There should be a bit of foaming, but if you don't see it, then sprinkle a bit of sugar into the bowl. After a few minutes you should see the mixture starting to puff and the yeast multiplying. If you don't then this means your yeast is dead and your cake won't rise.

In a mixer with the paddle attachment, add the butter, sugar and salt. Mix on high until very fluffy. Scrape down the sides and incorporate the egg on medium. Then, in an alternating pattern, add the flour and yeast mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then mix at a medium speed until the dough  becomes smooth and elastic and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. About

Place the dough in an unbuttered 9x13 baking dish and gently spread it out with your fingers to cover the  bottom of the dish. Cover with saran wrap and place in a warm dry place for about 3 hours or until it's doubled in size.

2 1/2 hours later, preheat the oven to 350 and add the corn syrup, vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of water to a small bowl. Whisk until incorporated and set aside. In a mixer with paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar and salt at a high speed until it is white and very fluffy. About 5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and beat in the egg at a medium speed. Add the flour and corn syrup mixture in alternating turns and scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Uncover the yeast cake baking dish and spoon the batter over top. Smooth it all across the cake with a spatula meeting the sides of the baking dish all around. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until the top is golden brown. The center won't set and will be quite shaky. Cool in the pan.

To serve, sprinkle just a little bit of sugar overtop. This is a sweet cake so it's just for show. Cut small slices and enjoy with tea or a glass of milk!

*Note: I recommend making this the day of since it loses it crisp chewy nature on the second day. It's still really tasty, but not mind-blowingly amazing.

*Note: I also think this would do well with a few tablespoons of lime, lemon or orange zest in the batter. I may try that next time.

Approximate Dinner Cost:
Groceries: $8-10
Cost per Meal: This is supposed to serve 18-20 people, but we were incredibly piggy and nearly devoured the whole thing. I'll say it makes more like 12-14 servings if people are behaving themselves.