Classic St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake with a twist – this easy Gooey Butter Cake with Brown Butter has a deeper, richer flavor that you’ll crave again and again!
Yep! You read that right. I love everything browned butter and when we had guests coming over a couple weeks ago, I decided to adapt my traditional St. Louis gooey butter cake recipe.
While that version can be a breakfast danish or dessert, gooey browned butter cake makes an incredible dessert!
Serve it al a mode if you want to go all out! If you can find caramel ice cream – even better.
The last couple weeks, we’ve been celebrating with friends and saying goodbye as we are preparing to move to St. Louis. My girlfriends and I went to a new restaurant in Kansas City, Newport Grill.
When it was time for dessert, I immediately eliminated the browned butter cake from my options. I’m not a huge fan of traditional cake and certainly don’t want pass up an incredible dessert opportunity for it.
When friend ordered it and I tasted it, I immediately knew it was not traditional cake.
It was gooey browned butter cake and I had to have it for myself!
Brown Butter is also known as beurre noisette – a warm sauce used in French cooking for vegetables, pasta, fish and chicken.
While it sounds and tastes “fancy” anyone can do it – in fact, you may have on accident without even realizing it!
It is the result of cooking butter until the milk solids turn brown and the water evaporates, resulting in a nutty aroma and flavor.
It tastes rich, like a hint of toasted nuts. Brown Butter enhances just about any baked good that calls for butter, giving it a deeper flavor.
Gooey Butter is a traditional St. Louis dessert that celebs like Paula Deen have recreated dubbing it Ooey Gooey Butter Cake. Whatever you call it, it’s amazing!
Over the years I’ve created a lot of variations to one of our favorite desserts! I don’t want to make the others jealous, but Brown Butter Gooey Butter Cake is my favorite!
It’s a layer of dense, moist cake topped with a sweet cream cheese mixture. The top forms into an amazing delicate crust for a beautiful crunch. It’s texture heaven!
Table of Contents
Brown Butter Gooey Butter Cake Ingredients
Simple pantry ingredients is all you will need to make this tasty treat!
- Golden Recipe Yellow Cake Mix
- Butter – unsalted preferred, softened (learn Learn How to Soften Butter)
- Eggs
- Cream Cheese – softened (learn How to Soften Cream Cheese)
- Powdered Sugar – also known as confectioners sugar or icing sugar
How To Make Gooey Butter Cake with Brown Butter
You can get the full printable recipe below – you’ll see, it’s so simple!
- Preheat oven.
- Brown Butter.
- Combine first layer.
- Spread mixture in pan.
- Combine second layer until smooth.
- Pour over cake mixture.
- Sprinkle powdered sugar on top to garnish.
- Bake (leaving it slightly gooey).
- Cool and serve.
You can learn more about how to brown butter with step by step photos and video here.
Tips to Make Brown Butter Gooey Butter Cake
- Use an 8×8, 8×8, 9×11 or 9×13 pan. Just adjust baking time.
- This danish / dessert is best kept covered at room temperature up to 4 days. It does not freeze well (due to cream cheese).
More Gooey Butter Recipes You’ll Love
- Peanut Butter Ooey Gooey Butter Cake
- Gooey Butter Cookies
- Gooey Butter Eggnog Cookies
- Gooey Butter Cake Without a Cake Mix
- Peanut Butter Ooey Gooey Butter Cake
- The Best Gooey Butter Cake Recipe
More Cake Recipes to Love:
- The Easiest Donut Cake
- Mandarin Orange Cake (Made From Scratch)
- Decorated Banana Cake Recipe
- Crazy Good Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Gooey Butter Cake with Brown Butter
Ingredients
- 1 box golden butter recipe yellow cake mix
- 1/2 cup butter
- 2 eggs
- 8 ounces cream cheese softened
- 1 pound powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x9 pan.
- In a small sauce pan over medium heat, watching carefully, brown the butter until it's a beautiful brown & has a nutty aroma. Allow to cool 5 minutes.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine butter & cake mix. Add eggs.
- Using a spatula, press dough into pan.
- Combine cream cheese, sugars, vanilla and egg until smooth. Pour mixture into dough.
- Garnish with powdered sugar and bake 40-45 minutes. You will a feel slight crust on top, won't be jelly.
Notes
Nutrition
Originally Published July 2014, updated November 2019
Turned out really good! Going to be making this again for Easter
Thank you, Chelsea! I truly appreciate you taking the time to rate.
Oh no! I took it out of the oven after 42 minutes it looked very brown and crusty. When it started to cook it sunk a bit? What can I expect?
Gooey butter doesn’t rise like cakes, the center will be soft and sunken.
This was fabulous!! Definitely a make again in our house! I served it with sea salt caramel ice cream. So good!
Thank you, Michelle! That means everything coming from another St. Louisan!
True gooey butter cake is never made with cake mix or cream cheese! Yeasted base layer and blended goo. Google for recipes.
Dean version is junk. Brown butter is a nice idea, though.
Hello, there Butterball! I am a St. Louisan myself and this recipe has been around long before Paula Dean. I also have a Gooey Butter Recipe without cake mix version but they’re both equally amazing. Don’t knock it until you try it. If you’re a St. Louisan you’ll know that there’s a mix of bakeries that do and don’t use cream cheese.
This looks delicious, thank you for sharing!
Went to college in STL and “learned” (it took only one bite) to love Gooey Butter Cake as does all my family.
I’ll be trying this version.
It’s addicting! Hope you enjoy!
I live inn Australia, we don’t have anything called ‘yellow cake mix’. Is that just another way of saying vanilla cake mix?
You can certainly use white…yellow cake (also known as golden) is just richer. You could also make it from scratch if you prefer. Gooey Butter Cake Without a Cake Mix
Either way, you won’t be disappointed!
I live in the STL area and make this frequently. I’ve never used brown butter or brown sugar?? I guess we all do it a bit differently. I use the yellow cake mix, 1 stick of butter, 8 ounces cream cheese, 4 eggs and 1 lb box of powdered sugar. One of the simplest recipes ever created and turns out perfect every time. Passed to me from a friend many, many years ago. I may give this one a try but you know we are pretty picky about our gooey butter cakes around the STL!
I have the classic recipe on my site, but love to play around with it which is how I developed this! It’s SO good – more of a dessert. Serve warm a la mode 😉
If you’re using cake mix and cream cheese, you’re not making real Gooey Butter cake! Look it up.
Paula Dean is not the real deal!
Hey, butter ball! I’m a St. Louisan. I have a recipe from scratch, too (see Gooey Butter Cake), but we all love the box mix version that’s been made and loved in St. Louis for years.
Soooo good!
Thank you Ruth Ann! So glad you loved it, too!
The recipe for this is not showing for me. Can I follow your regular Gooey Butter Cake and Browned butter technique to get the job done? I am hoping to use it for a birthday this Saturday! 🙂 Thank you for your lovely site! Kimberly
I’m SO sorry! I’m updating my recipe card to make it more user friendly and in the meantime, some go missing. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! You can can definitely do that or I reinserted the recipe card. Hope you have a great time celebrating!
Thank you so much!! My kiddos are so looking forward to it after drooling over your pictures! ?
I am going to try to make one.
I am going to make this. Looks delicious!!
this looks soo good!
Looks amazing and sounds delicious! Give me a slice will you? 🙂
Btw, love your way of checking for spam… Hate it when I have to enter in what the picture says and I can’t even read what it says!!
I wish I would have! We certainly shouldn’t have indulged on all of it! Oops! Thank you! I try to make it convenient & really appreciate you taking the time to comment!
Perfect for company. That’s all I’ll say. 🙂 Thanks for sharing, Julie! Pinned!