Happy Early Birthday to You!

He's gonna kill me for this but heck with it. Mike's birthday is on Saturday. He really only had one request when I told him he would be getting cake. Gooey Butter Cupcakes. What are those you say? Well I derived them from a Gooey Butter Cake that is famous in St. Louis Missouri. I have finally mastered the gooey butter cake. He wanted to see if I could figure out how to make them into cupcakes.

First I had to master the cake itself. After many attempts and tweaks to recipes I finally hit pay dirt.

Here are a few photos of the gooey butter cakes I have made, good and bad. A few had Mike "chasing gravy," as he puts it. You will learn, as I have, about the things I like to call "Mike-isms." You'll catch on ;) Promise.

OK Attempt #1. Not bad, but flavor was wrong and texture of the base.

Crust wasn't right, not sweet enough. Filling was good.

 OK Attempt # 2, trying new things with the crust. We are now "chasing gravy."

"Chasing Gravy"

Now, attempt #3, still can't seem to get it right. (didn't bother with a picture because I was mad.)

And the baking gods shine on me with attempt #4, I figured out the issue with the crust and pan and now it's perfecto!

Perfection - it is called "Gooey Butter Cake"

Now, time for experimenting, was going to see if I could do something different with the crust and use an old standby recipe, my mothers famous yellow cake......yeah that failed miserably.

Experiment gone wrong.

So moving to cupcakes as Mike had requested. Time to experiment. First time I filled them, cut out the centers and filled with the gooey butter cake filling...eh no so great and oozed out when you bit into it. A co-worker had the misfortune of getting it all over his hand and desk.

Oozy cupcakes -- yum, but messy

Second try was a variation of the original recipe just in a smaller form. Now I present you with the inaugural gooey butter cupcakes! Beautiful!

This one was a bit smooshed but I had to taste it :) Delish

So Mike tried those back when I first made them and approved those for his birthday. So now to present you with the birthday edition of "Gooey Butter Cupcakes A La Sarah." (had to make them twice the other night because as you can see the first batch was overcooked slightly - that was a bad day in general, work, home, baking, yuck. Let's move forward to something fun)

Overcooked

"Perfect Birthday Gooey Butter Cupcakes"

Now to call it quitting time and go home and get ready for an awesome weekend with Mike. We are going to be wild and crazy for his birthday. ;)

P.S. No you can't have the recipe I used because this one is my secret recipe and secret weapon when my advertising job falls through and I open a bakery. Everyone needs a secret recipe. This one is mine. :)