Apron Free Cooking ~ Gooey Butter Cake

By Noel Lizotte

We have a stand­ing debate at my house. The sub­ject: Is Ohio Part Of The Midwest?

As an Ohioan, I say “yes” and def­i­nitely believe that we are. My hus­band grew up in Penn­syl­va­nia. He says “Not Really.”

You’re prob­a­bly won­der­ing why we would even be dis­cussing the sub­ject… I get a mag­a­zine titled: Mid­west Liv­ing. My hus­band asked why I would sub­scribe to a mag­a­zine with that title, since I don’t live there.

You can imag­ine my reac­tion. For the pur­poses of the mag­a­zine, I think every state that isn’t clearly “New Eng­land”, “South­ern” or “West Coast” falls into their demo­graphic. How­ever, the geog­ra­phy debate aside, the mag­a­zine is usu­ally full of won­der­ful dec­o­rat­ing ideas and great recipes.

I recently pulled out a copy that I had saved for a long time and fol­lowed some of the recipes they had printed. The Mis­souri Gooey But­ter cake used ingre­di­ents I had on the shelf, so it was an easy trial. The pic­ture they showed made it look like a lemon bar type dessert. Tra­di­tion holds that the cake is the result of a baker mix­ing up the por­tions of flour and sugar.

I’m not sure about the ori­gin of the recipe, because I’ve learned that handed down sto­ries usu­ally have an ele­ment of “imag­i­na­tion” in them that stretches the facts. How­ever, I have also learned that many of the best recipes are the result of a kitchen “accident”.

Mis­souri Gooey But­ter Cake

1 c. All Pur­pose Flour

3 T. Sugar

1/3 c. Butter

1 2/4 c. Sugar

¾ c. Butter

¼ c. Light Corn Syrup

1 Egg

1 c. All Pur­pose Flour

1 (5 oz) can Evap­o­rated Milk

Crust: Mix 1 cup flour and 3 table­spoons sugar in a bowl. Cut in 1/3 cup but­ter and mix until mix­ture resem­bles fine crumbs. Press into ungreased 9x9x2 bak­ing pan.

Fill­ing: In large mix­ing bowl, beat 1 ¼ cups sugar and ¾ cup but­ter with elec­tric mixer. Beat in corn syrup and egg. Add 1 cup flour and evap­o­rated milk. Beat­ing on low speed until just com­bined. Bat­ter will look slightly cur­dled. Pour over crust. Bake in 350 degree Fahren­heit oven for 35 min­utes or until nearly firm when gen­tly shaken. Cool in pan on wire rack.

Make it a meal: Serve with a dust­ing of pow­dered sugar and a cup of cof­fee. Slice fresh straw­ber­ries and serve on the side.

Approx­i­mate Nutri­tional Value per serv­ing: Serv­ings Per Recipe: 8, Amount Per Serv­ing: Calo­ries: 347, Fat: 12g, Cho­les­terol: 22mg, Sodium: 108mg, Total Carbs: 56g, Pro­tein: 5g.

I was pleased that the recipe used pantry sta­ples. The only items that I had to check on were the corn syrup and the evap­o­rated milk. I try to keep those around, but often they are used up and I fail to replace them until I have a need for those ingredients.

I served this dessert the other night, using small serv­ing sizes, since it was an exper­i­ment. Both my hus­band and I went back for a sec­ond, reg­u­lar sized serving!

My hus­band and I agree that this dessert will stay in the menu rota­tion. On the ques­tion whether Ohio is part of the Mid­west, we’ve agreed to dis­agree. Although we both firmly believe that Ohio is one of the Great Lakes States!

Noel Lizotte is break­ing free of cor­po­rate stress with con­ve­nience cook­ing! This recipe is sim­i­lar to ones printed in her cook­book Apron Free Cook­ing which is avail­able on the web­site www.apronfreecooking.com. She also writes a monthly col­umn at www.culinarychat.net.

Posted by Noel Lizotte on Aug 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.