Gooey Butter Cake

OK… first, I need to thank Azzrian for suggesting this flavor. It is so amazingly good.

I love Gooey Butter Cake. My favorite one is the Lemon Gooey Butter Cake from Paula Deen’s baked goods that are sold at WalMart. I don’t like to shop there, it’s like my least favorite place to shop, but, when I do shop there, I always visit the bakery in search of Paula Deen’s Gooey Butter cake, specifically, the lemon gooey butter cake. Oh my goodness it’s so good. But I’m pretty sure it is not healthy. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the opposite of that, and something I shouldn’t eat. So the idea of having a gooey butter cake in a tea flavor without all the fat and calories that I’d get from the gooey butter cake, that’s sounds like a wonderful alternative to me.

Now… I’m not going to say that this is just as good as a gooey butter cake, because … it isn’t. Nothing really takes the place of the gooey butter cake, but … I think that this tea is tastier than NO gooey butter cake, and that’s about how much gooey butter cake I should eat. NONE. This is really good, and has the flavor that I love from the gooey butter cake (a little more lemon might be even better since I prefer the lemon variety). Sweet, buttery, rich, yummy.

And fat free.

Yay!!! Its here!!
Its steeping RIGHT NOW as I type this!
I can’t wait – I can’t wait!
I’m like a kid at Christmas!
My Gooey Butter Cake tea came along with my Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake today!
Of course I had to try this first although honestly – that Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake tea smells SO SO AMAZING!
Not that this one doesn’t but I think the CPC has a stronger aroma.
Okay let me check my brew here…. Auggg who am I kidding it has not been long enough – but let me tell you its smelling GOOOOOOD!
I think the only thing that was disappointing about getting this tea was I was secretly hoping for some of Frank’s wife’s (wish I knew her name) home made gooey butter cake haha. Yeah I don’t want much do I!?!
Its time!
OKay this is one of those teas you really NEED to add a little sweetener to.
I took my first couple of sips and it was good but I was not getting that CAKEY or GOOEY flavor – added a little rock sugar – AMAZING!
I don’t mind having to add a little sugar now and then to some teas – especially when they are DESSERT teas like this one. Now if I had to add sugar to a tea from teavivre, or mandala, or verdant, or stone leaf etc that would be wrong, but this is meant to be decedent so its fine with me.
With the sugar added its quite lovely. A good black base to hold up the interesting flavors of the gooey butter cake. There is a lemony flavor here too.
Gooey butter cake can come in just the regular flavor or a multitude of flavors really ANY flavor you can imagine.
This one has a lemon zest to it. Its nice.
There is also a toasty quality to it as well.
I am not sure I am going to have to sit with this for awhile. I am getting a bit more of a creme brulee flavor from it which trust me is NOT a bad thing, but I need to just study this one a bit longer and maybe use more leaf – I was light on the leaf in this steep.
Oh and I am absolutely going to have to try this ICED as well like Frank had it!

I think I’m going to let this one sit and meld a bit longer, as I am not getting much out of it beyond a touch of lemon zest. I added agave, but it didn’t really change anything. It just tastes like potential.

It does remind me a bit of Pancake Breakfast but lighter, and of course now that I’ve let it cool a lot more I can taste buttery cake. Or maybe it even reminds me of crepes, I like mine with a bit of lemon zest.

Also I have never had a gooey butter cake so I really don’t even know what I’m looking for other than butter and cake. I have just pulled up a recipe though, and next time I have a reason to bake for a bunch of people, I’m making it.

For anyone else who has objections to Paula Deen’s cake mix way (baking snob, sorry), here is a from-scratch way: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2010/03/st-louis-gooey-butter-cake/

Thanks to Azzrian for permitting me to taste my first 52 teas.

So inversely with a crème brûlée I have nothing to say about gooey butter cake, I never had the chance to taste one.
I made some research about this cake and it seems really nice, maybe one day I’ll try to do one.

I must confess something (I hope 52 teas would forgive me !) : seeing the picture I saw…a Hachis Parmentier !and I found this very weird…but knowing that a bacon maple tea was existing…I research the Gooey butter cake recipe and was totally reassured !

The dry leaves scent is really amazing, so fruity, absolutely divine.
Brewed I get a very thin aroma of pastry but the leading note is more fruity and clearly lemony.
Lemon is the star of this tea I think.
The black tea is smooth and pleasant but I didn’t find it very much character.
This is a nice afternoon tea, probably ideal to go along with a pastry.
I’m looking forward to taste this famous Gooey Butter cake pastry now !

Trying another tea from ch3rryprincess! Thank you! This has been on my “to try” list for a while, and it has been all I can do to keep myself from ordering it.

Brewed up, the aroma is quite interesting and tasty. I can smell a lemon verbena sort of lemony aroma, backed by caramelly aromas and a black tea base. Unfortunately, IMO, this tea smells more promising than it tastes. Sure, it’s lemony (kind of a lemongrass/lemon verbena sort of flavour), but other than a hint of sweetness, that’s all I’m getting, yet bitterness is already poking through in spite of a careful 2.5 minute infusion in a Finum basket. This is certainly not bad, and I’m sure it’s great sweetened, but I much prefer black teas with more caramelly flavour (which I was hoping this one would have in addition to the lemon).

(I’ll admit, it’s been about 5 minutes since I wrote this and neglected to hit “post”, and it’s growing on me a bit. Still not caramelly enough for me, but I do kind of like it, haha.)

So. I expected to be able to review a bunch of samples today and yesterday. My plan for my day off yesterday and today was to sit down happily with some tea and play my new copy of old-skool Riven.

That did not happen.

You see – work before play – I decided to first update some Ops forms I created for work and print off more. We absolutely need some for Tuesday. Which was the point when I discovered that the ENTIRE Microsoft Office Suite had mysteriously vanished from our computer.

My sister – in a stunningly self-centered move – uninstalled it because of a minor, annoying, Word-related prompt that appears at start-up. (This is left over from a tech-stupid, failed attempt on our part to install a more complete language pack to Windows.) My sister – who is disabled and does not work or go to school, unlike the rest of the family – somehow decided, “No one uses this, anyway,” and deleted Word, Excel, Powerpoint…

So I spent all of yesterday trying to System Restore and whatnot to fix it. De nada. We are now stuck with no working word processing/spreadsheet programs except crappy free ones. So unless we can borrow old installation discs off someone, we will probably need a new computer. Like we can afford that. Oh, and in the process of trying to fix that, I temporarily couldn’t get Riven to work, either. What a day. I had to vent, guys.

But my 52teas order came today! That’s such an improvement over yesterday, seriously. Just that. Huge improvement.

I decided to try this one first. When I cracked open the bag, wow, what a great smell! It’s very lemon-y on top, but there’s definitely something like butter and cake underneath that. Very promising.

I steeped this up – about 12oz worth with a scant teaspoon of rock sugar – and…the taste is…the taste is… Hmm. Um.

I’m not sure what this tastes like. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to taste like. Does cake taste like this? It’s pleasant enough, but I don’t get “cake.” It’s quite lemon-y.

Overall, it’s pleasant, but I wasn’t sure what to think of it. There’s a quality to it that’s almost like a tiny bit of sourness or astringency, and a tiny note of bitterness. I decided to add just a touch more sugar (white sugar, so that it would dissolve) and some milk. My instinct was that the milk would mellow this one out.

Wow! Did the milk ever help! I’m not so sure about the sugar because I can really taste it; but mellowed with milk, the better notes of this tea really shine through. It’s got a nice balance of lemon and sweet to it. I definitely think I taste something closer to “cake” at the bottom of the sip now (not the back, mind you, the bottom, let’s be specific here), but…damn that white sugar! Seems to be killing things. Man, why did I ever put this nasty stuff in my tea?! Never again, I swear. I’ll just suffer through it not being as sweet! Blech!

VERY nice with a bit of sugar and milk, anyway. Definitely has a “comfort food” factor to it, a good gaming tea!

Received this one from kittylovestea.

I’m not exactly sure what gooey butter cake is suppose to taste like. But it sounds & looks good.

I’m only getting a nice lemon taste from this with a nice black base. No butter, no cakey goodness. I do have more to give it another go. But right now just a plain old tea that you would turn into iced tea.

ETA: I had this again yesterday. I went & oversteeped it… ok next weekend I am investing in a real tea timer!!
So I was still getting only lemon & some astringency because of the over steep. Once it cooled I did get some of that delicious bakey flavour. I do have enough for one more cup, so I will try it again!

ETA 2: Finished this off this morning, some strange smell coming from the pouch. No astringency this time, but not much flavour. Still lemoney, maybe a hint of cake this time around. Definitely DID NOT over steep this time, no astringency to be found.

I only have a few minutes before I have to go to work, but I wanted to share that I had this tea for breakfast!

It tastes nothing like any butter cake that I have had, but oh is it tasty! It is a super creamy light lemon blend. I enjoyed it very much with my bread and jelly while I pondered over ordering the Christmas 12 days of tea… Hmmm….

The dry leaf smells citrusy. Once brewed the dark blend becomes deliciously lemony. The flavor is creamy, and in fact reminds me quite a bit of lemon cream pie! I had it slightly sweetened and it definitely made my day start with a tasty smile!

Enjoy your Thursday everyone! :)

52teas always seems to create something magical that pulls me in even when I’m hemorrhaging money into an over budget wedding. Gooey butter cake?? Who can resist that?! Obviously, not me. ;) Budget smudget.

The dry leaf aroma is butter and…something fruity? That’s unexpected. Reading the label, it must be the lemon myrtle. What’s lemon myrtle doing in my butter cake? Ironically, I had some butter cake earlier today. It was definitely not fruit-flavored, although it was paired with cinnamon apples and vanilla ice cream (which by the way is a to-die-for combination!).

The brewed tea aroma is most definitely lemon! Lots of lemon with black tea, and a hint of butter. Reminds me of that lemon, marshmallow, green, kitten-in-the-sky tea from a while back (if you couldn’t tell from that horribly inept description, I’m referring to Sun and Cloud Mist Tea). Kind of tastes like a black tea version of that too.

I’m not sure why lemon was added to this blend. It’s not a normal ingredient in any butter cake I’ve had. And it overwhelms the butter flavor almost completely! Hmm, well that’s a bit of a disappointment. It’s not a bad tea. But it’s not the gooey, buttery, cakey tea that I wanted.

It’s also a little bitter. I’m going to add some skim milk and Truvia and see what happens. Wow, much better! I also altered my expectations whilst exiting the kitchen. If I sip this thinking I’m about to have a nice black tea with lemon, it surpasses expectations! It’s really very yummy. But if I think I’m about to indulge in a liquefied butter cake, I’m left disappointed.

Goes to show that expectations really can alter our perceptions. I think I’ll stick with thinking of this as a lemon black. Because in that respect, it’s very very good.

My daughter Arianna & I are having breakfast & I let her pick out some of the teas that we’re drinking. Here are her comments regarding this tea:

“It’s flippin’ tasTea! (she told me to spell it that way), coming off first as light and lemony, with a smooth buttery finish”.

Next…

One dessert tea after another today! This is my first 52teas, courtesy of Azzrian.

I have to admit I’m getting a lot of lemon from this one. In a way, its more like Lemon Chiffon. Its very good regardless. Just not enough butter or cake for me.

Before I saw this tea, I had never made a gooey butter cake before. I had stumbled across different recipes, but never actually made it. So after I saw this tea, I thought that it would be a good time to bake the cake so I would know what this tea was trying to be! I made the cake and my family loved it. I think I will try making it again when everyone is home for the holidays. It will be better if there are more people around to eat it so there is less for me!

I’m very surprised to see that this tea has lemon in it! The cake I made was pure butter and sugar, but no lemon. The dry leaf smells yummy — very much like a sugary lemon pastry. I’m talking about that buttery pound cake with that tangy, incredibly sweet icing. It makes me think that I’m in for a real treat!

This tea is actually very mild compared to its scent. The flavors seem very watered down. Yes, I taste lemon with a nice sugary note. The black base adds a hint of astringency to the end of the sip. Normally, this would bother me (I think astringent teas don’t do well with creamy flavors), but as there is tart lemon here, it’s fine. I’m afraid to go past 3 minutes with 52Teas black tea bases, so I think I’ll stick with my steep time even though I want more flavor. This tea is lemony & yummy.. but very mild and not at all like the gooey butter cake I made. I think renaming this tea something like “lemon loaf” would be appropriate!

My swap package from Veronica came to me today and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. It is cold and rainy here because of the threatening hurricane. I live farther inland on the east coast, but it is not that far from the coast so our entire area has been prepped for a big storm. So far, nothing has been too huge here even though the schools have been canceled for today.

The dry leaf smells wonderful! It smells like sweet candied lemons. Once the tea is brewed, the smell tones down a little bit on the candy front and you can clearly tell it is a tea blend. Now it smells more like warm lemon sugar. The liquor is a lovely dark amber and the leaves were fun to watch steep in my press because they danced in the hot water.

Now comes the moment of truth: the taste test. Now, I have never had gooey butter cake so I don’t know what exactly that is supposed to taste like. The first thing that really hits me is the tea base. It tastes like a lighter black tea. I can really taste the lemon and lemon in my tea is something I don’t particularly enjoy if it isn’t offset by anything else. But I can tell there is something else in here that is mixing with the lemon.

I added a teaspoon of sugar to my cup and tried again. I am getting a more dessert-like flavor now and I am getting the gooey-cakey feeling that is more like a lemon bar than anything. If anything, I want more lemon in there to be more like a sweet-tart lemon bar and this is coming from the person who doesn’t care for lemon tea! How ironic.

I poured out a sample of the tea into a cup and mixed that with just a drop of milk. Regular milk because I didn’t want my almond milk to change the flavor profile too much. With milk I now get “CAKE!” but I think I like it without the milk better.

The rest of my mug is still hot and slightly sweet. I could probably have put two teaspoons of sugar in it while it was still full and have been satisfied, but I wanted to explore this cup. This is an interesting tea and I am very glad I got the chance to try it. I have a feeling that this might make an awesome sweet iced tea and because of the very generous sample size that Veronica sent to me, I will get to try it iced too!

The one flavor I think this is missing from the cup that would have rounded it out more is a little bit of vanilla. But that is probably me being picky.

Hmmm, so I did not taste gooey butter cake with this tea. Instead, I tasted lemon pound cake. It threw me for a loop at first, but I really, really like it. Every now and then there will be a floral overtone to the sip which is also very nice. I guess that would be the marigold. I like. More of the cake/butter flavors come out as the tea cools. It’s nice, but I think I like it the most when the lemon is a bit more present.

Thank you QueenofTarts for this swap!! Though I am slower getting my swap out, I was so excited to get this in the mail last night. I tried it immediately, while my boyfriend Rick looked at the package and said “Is this a real thing? Gooey butter cake? Why haven’t I ever eaten this?!”. I’ve never had it either but I did love the tea.

While I didn’t relate it quite to cake, I definitely got kind of a fresh lemon shortcake flavor out of it. The first time I tried Frank’s teas I wasn’t sure because the flavor of the black tea is strong, but now that I’ve tried a few of his and my tastes have adapted, I LOVE LOVE LOVE that you can taste the quality of the actual tea and not just the flavors in this! This is a delicious tea, something that I would love to have in the afternoon with friends or on my own to just recenter my mind. I can’t wait for another cup!

So, at my school they serve these great buttery lemon poppy seed muffins.I know this is called Gooey Butter Cake, but to me this tastes more like one of those muffins, dipped thoroughly in black tea. There is a distinct flavor of creamy lemon and undertones of butter that are not present unless you allow this tea to cool. I agree with some of the other reviews, this is one of those teas that you NEED sugar in to taste the flavors. A little soy milk brought out the creaminess even more. Overall, I like this tea; it is a high quality black tea with a great, subtle flavor. Would I buy it again? Eh…52 teas has so many other great flavors, probably not. But neither will this languish in my tea cupboard without use or love, which I cannot say of some other teas.

This tea was good, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. I didn’t know that gooey butter cake was commonly lemon flavored (should have done my research! I’ve only had the vanilla-y kind). I was expecting something more like a combination between pancake breakfast and butterbeer, but it tasted more like a creamy lemon to me, similar to the lemon solstice I recently had. I need to try it a couple more times.

I have never had gooey butter cake but I find the thought of it absolutely delicious and the picture on the front of this one just looks so delightfully sinful and yummy.

This arrived a few weeks ago but I had a cold at the time and couldn’t taste diddley squat so I have had to put off the tasting session until this morning. I kept looking at it every day thinking “I will be admiring you soon” and soon never seemed soon enough.

Raw this has a lovely black and gold mixture in colour and it smells like creamy vanilla and sweet lemon (the lemon surprised me). I had a good look at gooey butter cake recipes online and none have mentioned having lemon in them but I am thinking that maybe this might be a personal twist on the classic recipe.

I noticed that other tasters mentioned adding milk and sugar but I am going to try my first cup ‘au natural’. Especially if this tastes as it smells then I will be in creamy lemon heaven.

Smell wise once brewed this has taken on a slightly earthier tone which is probably from the black tea but the vanilla and lemon still peak through quite strongly.

I may have over steeped this for a minute or so as the black tea is quite strong and has a slight bitterness to it. I do like my black tea’s strong but I think that with the lemon in this tea that strength is not necessary. The flavours do taste as it smells (creamy lemony and smooth) and the black is a dark and roasted kind of taste.

I honestly cannot taste cake or a dessert at all but it is very nice. It’s just more of a creamy lemon drink which may be creamier with added milk. I suppose I can try that now. Dashes off to put a drop of milk in. It now has milk and has cooled down slightly, well it does taste creamier and some of the bitterness from the black has gone so it’s much smoother and creamier (both of which are positive). Still creamy and lemony just a lot more so with the milk.

It’s a nice drink as I love lemon and if you were to argue it was cakey then it would be some sort of lemon cake (lemon squares, lemon pound cake etc) but I can’t taste any butter. I think the vanilla like flavour is meant to mimic the butter but I just taste more vanilla then butter and with the lemon being over the top of the two flavours it’s hard to define it.

I will have no problem finishing the rest of this pouch but I am slightly disappointed that it doesn’t taste as I imagined.

Steep Information:
Amount: 3 tsp
Water: 750ml at 195°F
Tool: Breville One-Touch Tea Maker BTM800XL
Steep Time: 4 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: chemical, sweet, floral
Steeped Tea Smell: cake, lemon poundcake, floral
Flavor: sugar shortbread cookie
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: astringent
Liquor: Dark red brown

Weak for black, but not bad, not buttery?

Post-Steep Additives:
milk, sugar (1 tsp)

Rating: 2/4 leaves

Blog: http://amazonv.teatra.de/2013/01/18/52teas-loose-leaf-black-tea-gooey-butter-cake/

Ok so I got this tea from ch3rryprinc3ss And I don’t taste what’s I feel I should … Maybe i over brewed it ill try again later :(