Inspiration: Did you learn this riddle as a kid — How do you eat a bear? One bite at a time. It’s intended to illustrate how to overcome an overwhelming task. It’s also how my mother-in-law ate an entire gooey butter cake in one sitting whilst gabbing away with her fellow family members one evening. What’s even funnier? No one, including her, noticed the cake slowly shrinking until after she demolished the entire sucker. After listening to this story get retold for years at every holiday gathering, I decided to make her one as both a joke and in her honor. 

Unfortunately, I fell at the first hurdle. 

In a fit of spring cleaning, my mother-in-law threw out all her handwritten family recipe books and cards, believing they all could be found online. (I nearly cried when she told me this. All that knowledge lost!) Meaning she no longer had a copy of her mother’s original recipe. 

And this was about eight(ish) years back — before yeasted cakes became all the rage. Making it challenging to find a recipe that didn’t start from a boxed cake mix (which I can’t eat due to allergies), and even those shortcut ones were few and far between. 

So I made her lemon bars instead. 

Then, about a year later, Bake From Scratch magazine printed a scratch-made recipe for St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake! To say I was over the moon is an understatement, and so was she when I presented her with it. 

Even better? The whole family finally got to taste this legendary/infamous cake and fall in love with it.

Helpful Hints From Me To You: This cake can take upwards of 6-7 hours to make. However, you can shave this down to 3(ish) with a little bit of easy prep. 

1. Brown the butter the night before, then set it in the fridge to cool overnight. Then remember to pull it out when you start making the base so it warms to room temperature when you’re finally ready to use it. 
2. Pull the butter and eggs you’ll need for the recipe from the fridge and leave them on the kitchen counter overnight. It’s really important for this recipe that these ingredients are at room temperature when you use them. Otherwise, the base layer won’t rise as high when baked.
3. Make sure to use a 13×9” pan with tall sides. This cake rises and falls a lot in the oven, and if you’re not careful, you could end up with cake all over the bottom of your oven. I use disposable aluminum pans, the one between the short-sided cake pan and the steep-sided turkey roaster. 
4. Make sure to preheat your oven about 45 minutes before the rise time is complete. (That way your oven’s temp is stable when you put the cake in to bake.)
5. In the last twenty minutes of the rise time, make the batter for the second layer.

Although the time sink is considerable for this cake — 2 hours of it is simply letting the first layer rise, and 30 minutes of baking. So this cake isn’t quite as daunting as it sounds. Moreover, you don’t frost it — you simply sprinkle it with powdered sugar, and maybe some edible glitter, then you’re done. 

The gentle unevenness of the gooey butter cake’s top is its hallmark, i.e, something to be highlighted, not covered up.

Christie’s Canon of Characters: I can totally envision Tuppence making this cake, should it have migrated from around the St. Louis area to England between 1922 and 1973. 

Because you can get so many other things accomplished whilst making this dessert: a couple of loads of laundry washed, dried, and folded; dishes washed and counters cleaned; beds made; pick up the house; even a bit of vacuuming. All things that need doing, but can be challenging to accomplish when baking sweets. All you need to do is keep an eye on the clock and timers wound!

It’s a fantastic multitasker cake.

Especially when you need to bake something for a fete or bake sale, but your three kids need clean britches!

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2025