I baked it and brought half of it to my sister. Share with a neighbor or friend.

Sound delicious, but I don't dare!

I dare LOL I have all the ingridents except the cream cheese which none of us eat unless sugar is involved. I'll get some tomorrow. I was trying to decide on a dessert for the kids (not me really) for this weekend...I think it will be Sheilajoyce's Gooey Cake.

I was thinking that my grandson might like to bake and eat this cake. I am not sure I have the time this weekend though. My husband and I just moved my MIL 101 years old to an assisted living near our home from out of state yesterday. There is lots to do to get her settled in. She is not an easy woman and had major drama at the residence. My husband is there now.

I haven't compared the ingredients for amounts, but isn't this the same cake Paula Deen touted for years, calling it (I think) "Ooey Gooey Cake"? And before that, it was popular here in Texas, but known as a "Neimen Marcus Cake". I'll have to dig out my recipe (after Harvey leaves) to see what the differences might be, if any.

Whatever, it IS a very VERY good cake! ! ! Although slightly addictive. :^) Thanks for sharing the recipe.

Rusty

This is a take on a St Louis classic - Gooey Butter Cake. It's a coffee cake in St Louis. I preferred a version of it made by the late, VERY great Lake Forest Bakery, called German Gooey Butter Cake. It was not quite as cloyingly sweet.

If you Google Gooey Butter Cake St Louis, you will find a million hits claiming they have the "original recipe" from Lake Forest. There is huge variety in the various recipes.

Try this with a chocolate or brownie bottom layer.

I book marked it....:0) Thx!

Looks suspiciously like Neiman Marcus bars. Wonder who was first?

ETA: Just now saw your post Anglophilla. I agree

"Try this with a chocolate or brownie bottom layer."

I have that on hand, too. :-(

I live in the sticks and have 2 freezers. I keep everything on hand. So far I haven't made it. I was thinking next time I serve coffee at church... Take it there and it will be gone. I can taste a piece, not the whole pan.

Oh, yes the gooey cake. It has been around for a very long time. They are really good but have not made one in years.

Sue

I was introduced to Gooey Butter Cake nearly as soon as I came to St Louis 40 years ago. My family in the southeast makes what I think is the same thing, but maybe without the cakey crust. They call it Girdle Buster.

I liked it, but a couple years ago we bought one and served it to out of town guests explaining that it was a St Louis classic. Well, we were embarrassed because the bought cake was terrible. I should have known. In general I think you have to go to a really top notch bakery to beat home cooking.

My grandmother used to take me to St Louis 4 or 5 times a year to attend a play at the Fox Theater on a Saturday morning. We would always stop at a certain bakery for a whole gooey butter cake to bring home after the play, and it had a yeasty bottom, no cream cheese, and was not really sweet sweet. My MIL makes the recipe posted and it's probably a good cake if made correctly, but MIL only bakes hers for about 25 minutes at 350 and it's so sweet I can't eat more than a tiny bite........I think I'll try this recipe, baking it lower and longer for our next family dinner!!!

Anglo, my mother used to bake a Gooey Butter Cake. I have no idea where she got the recipe, but she made it often when she wanted a recipe-in-a-hurry for us at home. She loved to bake and could turn out some wonderful desserts, but she would also make simple things like this.

Hey, I just remembered--There is also a Gooey Butter Cake cookie recipe or two out and about. Again, the homemade ones are delicious, but the bakery made ones I've had are kind of yucky, underbaked just as Marcy's MIL does with the cake. Underbaking is my complaint about commercial bakeries these days. I don't care for pale, mushy, pasty, wet baked goods, especially cookies. But, yeah, try a Gooey Butter Cake Cookie recipe, too...My wife bakes in winter; I'll put in a request.

There are still a couple of good bakeries in St Louis that make many of the old favorites from Lake Forest Bakery, including the Gooey Butter Cake (unfortunately, no one is making the German Gooey Butter). One is right across the side street from the old Lake Forest location; the other is in Kirkwood, I think. My former husband often brings these to my daughter when he comes to visit - he lives in Kirkwood. I've heard that Dierberg's makes a decent one but I've never tried it. Someone else said that Straub's was also making one. They've always had an excellent bakery so it might pass muster.

St Louis benefited greatly from the great German immigration that started in the 1830's. They were fine butchers and outstanding bakers. At one time, there were three exceptional bakers within blocks of one another: Lake Forest, Pfeiffer's (right down the street on Clayton Rd), and Andre's (down the street and to the left on Brentwood). All are now gone. Andre's is still in its original city - Kansas City - but the ones various family member opened in other cities are now all gone. When I lived in St Louis (1962-1981), I preferred Lake Forest for coffee cakes and Black Forest cake, Pfeiffers for other cakes and their fabulous hot cross buns and other rolls and buns), and Andres for their amazing Swiss (think similar to French) pastries. Their European cakes and tortes were TDF and their various pastries - OMG! My father adored their rum balls - sort of miniature round cakes with all sorts of goodies inside.

No one wanted to learn the trade and take over and they could not get help that had any interest in making a quality product (the old employees having retired or died), so they closed. Such a shame.