Making Claire Saffitz's Gooey Butter Cake *dessert person review*

Hello friends! Today I'm back with another recipe trial and review from Claire Saffitz's cookbook, Dessert Person! I decided to give her Saint Louis Gooey Butter Cake a shot and, although there were a few bumps along the way, the cake ended up being absolutely delicious! I did have some issues with my yeast, so if you have any helpful advice or suggestions, please be sure to drop a comment down below! I hope you all enjoy and be sure to let me know what other cooking/baking content you'd like to see!!

Music:
Track: Our Leaves in the Breeze — Artificial.Music [Audio Library Release]
Music provided by Audio Library Plus

[auraarma]

I noticed your yeast mixture did not look bubbly (a sign that it’s active). Maybe the water was too warm or not warm enough? Something I like to do is add a tsp of sugar to the yeast mixture. It really helps the yeast activate.

[luvkav]

I’m here to stay and see you make the whole book :)

[rachelsfoodventures]

Don't worry about the slow/minimal rise! The proportion of butter, sugar, and eggs in that dough will all slow down that small amount of yeast since it's meant to be a cake batter. If it was a bread dough instead there would be more flour, yeast, and actual kneading which would build a stronger dough (more gluten development) and you would get a better rise. So I think the expectation in her cookbook that it would "double" in size was a bit too generous :) The end result looks great!!! I think the yeast helped make small bubbles that made it more cake-like.

[miss_m_yt]

I usually wet my hands with water when the dough is sticky (a tip I learned from a yeast based pizza dough recipe from King Arthur 🙂)

[jennigee]

What I love about you, and others like you, is that you don’t stop the video and re-do it so that it looks perfect, we all can make mistakes and the fact that you do too, makes those of us who do, much less apprehensive in trying these things. This is the first video I’ve watched of your’s, it won’t be the last! 😀 Thank you.

[barretone]

These videos make me really happy when I see them on the home page :^)

[veronicatartaglia]

Literally just found your channel! Thanks for uploading such chill videos!!!! They're really relaxing and help distract me from the hell that is my first year of college (if you can really call it that considering we're all stuck at

[sunney]

Good to watch and that sailor moon T- shirt are very interesting 😊

[merveyilmaz]

you two make a very cute couple, i love the way you interact with eachother. very calming way of filming, and editing! def going to watch more videos

[kschmittgens]

From St. Louis and I am glad to see how it is made. I love it

[Andrea-lmzh]

I’ve Made this version of this cake probably 10 times lol. I love it 🥰 especially room temp, dipped in my coffee. Especially with a corner piece.

[Button]

I made this cake and it didn’t rise much at all. It was really gooey and amazing. I just went to the next steps and looked pretty similar. My oven spiked in temp and I slightly over baked a little bit.

[laurajens]

St. Louis resident here! We make our Gooey Butter Cake with yellow cake mix, eggs, butter, and cream cheese. Its also one step/dough. Even in Claire's book it looked way dry and too large of crumb. You might google the cake mix recipe and give it a try!

[UnverifiedLies]

Thank you so much for this! Was making this while watching Claires video but she cut away and didnt really show the cake batter consistency very clearly... This was super helpful!

[PotionsMaster]

There’s a type of yeast specifically made for enriched doughs and batters because fat sugar and salt in high enough amounts inhibit its functioning. One of the brands is called saf’s instant gold yeast. I also never bother to use active yeast as it’s got a higher fail rate than instant which you can just throw in with everything else. Fresh yeast is also great but hard to get and moulds very fast if not used

[sallychen]

This looks amazing! Thanks for sharing, friend. Let's stay connected.

[miss_m_yt]

Ohhh that’s awesome your hand blender has dough hook attachments. Which model is it? 😀

[dragonfly]

Your yeast might have been slightly less lively than it should be, yeast cakes are a huge thing in my country and they always contain large amounts of butter and eggs, so it should have been much puffier than it was. But the thing about yeast cakes is that they dry out quickly, so a thinner yeast cake + that yummy thing on top honestly sound better if you aren't going to eat the whole thing at once.

You have a great voice for baking videos. Idk. how to explain it, but you do :D

[miss_m_yt]

I’m really enjoying your videos. Your cake looked awesome!

[Anna-squh]

The same thing with the rises happened to me when I made this cake! It didn't look like the dough was rising at all, but once in the oven it rose and appeared to work properly. So you're not alone in the rise issue :)
Also, your baking content is fun. Keep it up! Rock Chalk.