- Gooey butter cake
Gooey butter cake is a type of
cake traditionally made in the U.S. city ofSt. Louis, Missouri , with a bottom layer of buttery yellow cake and a top layer of either egg andcream cheese , orbutter andsugar . It is generally served as a type ofcoffee cake and not as a dessert cake. It is believed to have originated around 1943. [ [http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Cakes/GooeyButterCake.htm History of Gooey Butter Cake ] ]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 recipe calls for a bottom layer of
butter and yellow cake, and a top layer made from eggs,cream cheese , and in this casealmond extract. The cake is dusted withconfectioner's sugar before being served.The cream cheese variant of the gooey butter cake recipe, while close enough to the original, is an approximation designed for easier preparation at home. Almost all bakeries in the greater Saint Louis area, including those at grocers
Schnucks andDierbergs , use a slightly different recipe based on corn syrup, sugar andpowdered eggs -- no cake mix or cream cheese is involved.A legend about the cake's origin is included in "Saint Louis Days...Saint Louis Nights" (ISBN 0-9638298-1-5), a cookbook published in the mid-1990s by the
Junior League of St. Louis. The cake was supposedly first made by accident in the 1930s by a St. Louis-areaGerman American baker who was trying to make regular cake batter but reversed the proportions of sugar andflour .The
St. Louis Bread Company makes danishes with a gooey butter filling.References
ee also
*
Coffee cake External links
* [http://www.mohumanities.org/programs/cultural/kiarticle.htm Recipe from scratch] , from the
Missouri Humanities Council website (usingvanilla extract instead of almond)
* [http://www.jlsl.org/cookbook/gooeybutter.html Recipe from scratch] from the Junior League (sweetened withcorn syrup and usingevaporated milk instead of cream cheese)
* [http://stlplaces.com/stl_foods/ Special Foods of St. Louis MO] List of foods that are unique to St Louis
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