Travelling to St. Louis and Gooey Butter Cake

Now that went well, did it? Rather not! Or did it? Anyway, a lot depends on your attitude. As to that I rather have a negative one, although I am trying my best  to get rid of it. On that thought, as long as you are still alive and well, you should be happy and consider things to be well.
As to the global picture ... well, this isn't the place nor the time to expound this. After all, this blog isn't called "Problems Around the World", but rather "Cooking Around the World". For that, right here, right now, I am not available for talking about what is going on in this crazy world ... and I don't mean good crazy.
Talking about good crazy would bring us a bit closer to the style of this blog. You haven't read anything good crazy lately around here. Well, that's not my fault, is it?
That won't get us anywhere, looking for the guilty one, who's fault it is. Rather we want to look ahead and concentrate on getting out something positive.
On that note, let me ask about your opinion regarding butter. Do you like it? How would you care for extensive use of it in a cake and then ... call it gooey butter cake?
I don't know about you, but for my ears this has a quite positive ring to it
Now it seems that the US city of St. Louis, Missouri, seems to be a bit famous for its gooey butter cake. Well, there is only one way to find out about it. Does this already sound like bullwhip and fedora hat again to you?
So come along as we not only cook (or rather bake) around the world, but as we actually travel around the world ...

There is always something new. While I have been travelling a lot in the past, I didn't have so many problems doing so, apart from this incident where I had to spend a night at an airport in Spain because of a strike of air traffic control in France and that my luggage was delayed for a few days, things went well so far. On the other had, I am still enjoying a few shirts and other things I had to buy because of that.
Now on the last trip to St. Louis, Missouri, I got to know about the concept of waiting list. It seems a bit strange, that airlines sell more tickets for flights than there are actually seats on the plane, but ... we said this isn't the place to talk about such things. Anyway, they let us on the plane. 
At the next stop, though, there wasn't another plane, for the weather wasn't that favourable for flying. So we had to stay a night at the airport ... again ... but this time at a nearby hotel. The next day involved running around at the airport looking for a plane that was willing to take us to St. Louis. We managed to get on the third one.
However, let us not dwell on those things. Finally we got to where we wanted to be and everything was awesome. So for that we don't want to discuss the matter more closely why some people refer to Missouri as misery. Although ... if you have any thoughts on that, please feel free to comment below.
The Gateway Arch of St. Louis seems to be well know, although, honestly, I didn't know about it before. This fact didn't deter us to go up the Gateway arch and to look down on the city. You have to get into some small kind of elevator with five people and then up you fo in three minutes. If you don't like cramped place, you better don't get up. However, the view was luvly. 

Among other things you can see the courthouse. You could go there and take a tour. That would be better than to be in the courthouse for some other reasons ...

From above the riverboats look really tiny, but still it's worth to go down and take a tour on the river. We were lucky as to that. A few weeks before there was some flooding in St- Louis and had the water not been gone in time, there wouldn't have been a chance for a riverboat cruise. But as I said we were lucky and so we enjoyed it.
What else is there to enjoy? You could see the St. Louis Zoo. What is even better about it ... it's free. Then you could go to the botanical gardens or to the library or whatever you enjoy doing ...

If I hadn't forgotten already (I don't know if it is my age or the flooding of information daily or that I didn't care that much about the ceiling of the library) I would tell you what is special about the ceiling of the library and ... I don't care investigating now. Anyway, I thought it might look nice.
Somehow I get the feeling, we should talk food now.

That was the result of our visit to the Sugarfire smoke house to get some local fare. What have we got here. Well, well, well, there are some vegetables. Then we have sweet potatoes with marshmallows, some creamy broccoli and stuff, a bit of chilli and meat, meat, meat (why else would they call it the meat daddy). As to the meat we have some pulled pork (yum), a chilli cheese sausage (lovely), some brisket (delicious), a bit of turkey and some ribs (awesome as the meat easily slides from the bone).
Now have a guess! How many people could make this happy and how many people actually did this make happy (be careful and consider the history of this blog)?
Now this has been just one meal, but we wouldn't have the time to mention everything we had over there. So as to that let me just share a bit of Peruvian food. Right, we are still in St. Louis and we still have to be there, for we didn't have gooey butter cake yet, but let me mention this food anyway. For I am not quite sure if we ever get the chance to go to Peru actually, although this thought would appeal to me ... for various reasons.
So, Peruvian cuisine? What are we going to have?

Now, this doesn't look to special, does it? Anyway, it has some mango and cilantro and ... let us try something else, although I am not going to say the salad wasn't delicious. It was good, indeed, but ... let's go on ...

Those fried shrimps with yuca were really good. I enjoyed the plate very much. Especially, though, I was surprised by the sweet corn. It wasn't like any sweet corn I have had and will have in the near future. If I would get the chance to eat some more of it, I'd readily go for it. The touch of lime and the white garlicy cream on the plate rounded it well up. The only thing left to eat then would be dessert ...

Lovely and fresh was this little Mango sorbet. It becomes even tinier when you have to share it. Well, that is lover.
Finally then on some other day we had some gooey butter cake. Lovely! Delicious! No chance to take a photo, just going for it. The cake was so buttery and so gooey ... I guess that's why the name.
It was a really excellent trip. We enjoyed it really very very much and especially for the reason we went over there. As to that I just want to say it wasn't neither the place nor the food in itself. That has to suffice.
After some time back home the question came up as to what to recreate when it comes to the food of the trip. Apart from that, the trip had a few other destinations. If somehow I should find the time, I could write about this as well. Just would have to find something to recreate food wise.
So, St. Louis barbecue wouldn't work here for us at our place, although I would have loved that. Maybe I find a chance some other time. That would leave us with baking then and with the gooey butter cake.
This, however, would require some research (which I was willing to do) to find out how I could recreate this cake at home. So, research then, then some translating from different measuring systems and some replacing of ingredients. All that leaves us with the following ...

Gooey Butter Cake

Ingredients

bottom:
70 ml warm milk
7 g yeast
6 tbsp butter
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg
228 g flour

topping:
230 g butter
400 g sugar
3/4 tsp salt
75 ml syrup (I used maple syrup and a bit of honey)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
75 ml milk
162 g flour

Powdered sugar

Method
To kick things off we put the dried yeast on top of the warm milk and let it rest in peace for 10 minutes. Then you can mix it through and set it aside.
Here comes the whipping part as you cream the butter sugar and the salt together. After you have accomplished that, incorporate one egg. Then you add one third of the flour, mix, one third of the milk, mix, one third of the flour, mix, one third of the milk mix and then ... yes you got it ... one third of the flour, mix and one third of the milk mix and ... if you have any left ... you are very bad at mathematics.
Grease a large cake tin ... in style ... with butter. Then spread the cake matter ... no, batter is better, evenly in the cake tin and cover it up with a cloth.
No, now you don't need mathematics, just patience and a timer set to about two hours. Actually, you have to be ready to work again before the time is up. You have to start heating up the oven to some degrees Fahrenheit which would be in my case my favourite 180°C. Before the two hours are over completely you have to get the buttery topping ready.
Whipping up ... the butter, sugar and salt. You might find it useful when all the butter you are using is at room temperature. Yes, I could have mentioned this earlier, but you really should read the complete recipe before starting (I often tend not to do so).
Those ingredients combined the syrup and vanilla extract make there appearances. Off they go into the bowl to the butter. Let one egg follow and combine all well. Once that is done, yes ... add another egg and combine as well. Now add the milk and without further ado the flour. Go for it! Combine everything to get a lovely batter, which in turn you can add evenly to the cake tine now.

If your timing was perfect you now may enter the cake tin into your oven and let it bake for 20-25 minutes. You have to watch it a bit, that the top gets a bit colour but at the same time everything doesn't get too cooked through ... or you can forget about the gooey part. Don't be afraid, you can do it. If your oven is doing a good job and you have the right cake tin, it would work out in your favour.

That looks like as some cooling down is in order. When you have managed to get this far, you will accomplish this final period of patience as well. That would be a good quality for everyone to cultivate. That way you wouldn't get angry because you have to wait in the line of the supermarket or because the car in front of you is going to slow or your spouse or friend is doing the same mistake over and over again (please have mercy on me - oh, great, another good quality). Oops, we didn't want to get into this subject ... as I said so before.
Back to the cake some icing sugar will give us the final touch ...

Now this leaves us only with the part of cutting the cake into pieces of the desired size. Just keep in mind, if you cut smaller pieces, then you can eat more pieces ...
With that in mind I leave you alone ... again ... until next time ... whenever that may be.
Who can say where the road goes? Only time!