Gooey Butter Cake

Last week, I had a pizza night with my mother-in-law.  For dessert, she made ooey gooey butter bars from a Paula Deen boxed mix.  They were pretty good.

This gooey butter bar originated back in the 1930s in the St. Louis area, and is firm in texture, similar to a brownie in that you can cut it into squares, yet has a pudding-like, or gooey, layer.  There are all sorts of variations and flavors - lemon, pumpkin, chocolate - of this recipe.

Paula Deen has made this particular confection famous in recent years.  I watched her cooking show from the beginning, especially in the early days of my shop, and found that many of her recipes were the same ones that my mother prepared for us when I was a kid.  This dessert - this ooey gooey butter bar - was one of them.  My mother was making these for us when I was in the seventh grade, long before Paula's show hit the airwaves.  We called it by several names - gooey butter cake, ooey gooey butter bars.  I remember thinking it ought to be named something a little more appetizing.  What sounds good about gooey butter?  That word "gooey" put me right off, although it didn't stop me from eating it.

Tasting these bars again made me feel a little nostalgic, and I hadn't made them in a long time, so I pulled out my mother's recipe and decided to make a batch myself.

First, assemble your ingredients.  

For the crust:

1 box yellow cake mix
1 egg
1 stick butter, melted

For the filling:

1 8-oz. package cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350F.  Prepare a 9" x 13" sheet cake pan.

My sheet cake pan has been used quite often during the past ten years - as have the other three that I have - so I prefer to line it these days, either with foil or parchment paper, before baking in it.   (This is a Wilton pan, which I highly recommend for all your sheet-cake size baking requirements.) 

You can also bake this cake in a 9x13 glass baking dish.  A glass dish will absorb heat faster than a light metal pan, so you will need to adjust the baking temperature down to 325 F.

Combine the cake mix and melted butter in the large mixing bowl of your electric mixer.




Note that I used my trusty dough hook for this job.

Add one egg.

Mix the three ingredients at low speed until combined.  Use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom of the mixing bowl and fold in any loose cake mix.  Continue to mix until thoroughly combined





It's ooey and gooey.

The cake mixture will be thick and gooey.  I have seen photos of this mix that looks much drier at this point, but the end results appear to be the same.  (Maybe the butter wasn't melted in those recipes.)

Spray the foil lightly with baking spray.  Spread the cake mixture evenly in the pan.  I used an angled spatula to do this (another invaluable Wilton product).  If you use foil to line your pan like I did, you will need to hold it in place as you do this.




Still gooey.

For the filling, mix the remaining ingredients and beat until creamy.




More goo.  Now I get it!

I added them all together at once before giving it much thought, and had a little difficulty completely incorporating the cream cheese, even though it was very soft (at room temperature).  I think I may beat it until it is creamy first when I make this again, and add the other ingredients afterward. 

Spread the cream cheese mixture over the cake mix layer.  The cream cheese mixture will be easily pourable.

Bake at 350 degrees F. for 40 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.  The edges will be lightly browned.  Don't overcook because the cake layer will be "heavy".




Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

You can see the differences in texture.  The top layer is reminiscent of cheesecake, which must be why I always liked these bars so much.  I am a huge cheesecake fan.  Plain cheesecake.  Thick New York-style cheesecake.  Which I eat maybe once a year, but would love to eat every day.

Paula Deen's recipe is almost identical to my mother's, with one exception:  Paula's uses a 16-oz. box of powdered sugar - about 4 cups - in the filling, while I only used 3/4 cup, which would explain why her bars have a thicker, "gooier" top layer than mine do.  I remember having this with a much more gooey, crackly top than what I made this time.  You can adjust to your taste.  This recipe is not overly sweet, but sweet enough.

How many of my southern friends remember this recipe from their childhood?