Gooey butter cake bars. Just the words conjure up happy thoughts of a sweet delicious dessert straight from the oven, ooey, gooey cake bars with the perfect crust that crumbles in your mouth and mixes with the flavors to make an instant party in your mouth. It’s like fireworks on the 4th of July exploding with flavor and you just want to chew slowly and savor the taste. What I love about gooey butter cake is that it is so versatile. You can change the flavors along with the seasons or with what you’re having for dinner or just because you want to see how many ways you can make gooey butter bars. I have made this a hundred times and I always use Paula Deen’s original recipe and make adjustments from base recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 (18 1/4 oz) package yellow cake mix
- 1 egg
- 16 tablespoons melted, divided butter
- 1 (8 oz) package softened cream cheese
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 (16 oz) box powdered sugar
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 °F.
Combine the cake mix, egg and 8 tablespoons butter and mix well with an electric mixer. Pat the mixture into the bottom of a lightly greased 13 by 9-inch baking pan.
In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the eggs, vanilla and 8 tablespoons butter and beat together.
Next, add the powdered sugar and mix well. Spread over cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Make sure not to over bake as the center should be a little gooey.
Some of the variations I might make include: Strawberry cake mix with strawberries, lemon cake plus lemon curd-you could use lemon pie filling, spice cake plus pumpkin, carrot cake plus carrots, spice cake plus a can of apple pie filling, pineapple cake with crushed pineapple, chocolate cake with peanut butter, chocolate cake with chocolate chips or chocolate with raspberry jam would be a few of the variations I could see. I could list more examples but, I think you can see where I am going with this. I encourage you to try it out and remember it may take a time or two to get it perfect for you, but, if you like this bar style of delectable, you will thank me for these ideas. So, get out there and get baking.
