St. Louie Cake: A Buttery Classic with St. Louis Roots
When you cut into a butter cake, you’re really slicing into history. This humble yet indulgent category is one of the cornerstones of American baking. Unlike lofty sponge cakes that rise on whipped egg whites, butter cakes depend on the magic of creaming butter and sugar together until they’re light enough to trap air. That technique—perfected in the 19th century—provided us with a reliable and repeatable way to transform pantry staples into something celebratory. Flour brings structure, eggs add richness, milk makes it tender, and the result is a cake so adaptable it’s been embraced everywhere from New England parlors to Southern porches.
Butter Cakes are still around because of their “Comfort Factor”.
Butter Cakes are sturdy without being stodgy, rich without being overwhelming, and endlessly riffable. Across the country, families made them their own—pound cake in the South, coffee cake crowned with streusel in the Midwest, frosted layer cakes at birthdays everywhere. But nowhere did the butter cake become more of a local legend than in St. Louis, where a bakery “oops” turned into a civic treasure. The story goes that in the 1930s, a German-American baker miscalculated proportions and ended up with a cake that refused to rise properly. Instead of tossing it, he sold it. The customers went wild for the gooey, custardy middle that contrasted with its firm, buttery base. The St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake was born, and generations of locals have claimed it as their own ever since.
Meet the St. Louie Butter Cake Baker: Lia Holter
St. Louie Cake comes to us by way of Lia Holter, a St. Louis–born baker whose story is as irresistible as her desserts. Lia started young—mixing Italian Christmas cookies with her family before she was tall enough to see over the counter. In 2014, Lia won TLC’s Next Great Baker. That victory launched Made. by Lia, her craft bakery in Old Town Florissant, just north of St. Louis. Lia built it into a community hub, known for scratch-made everything—from vegan doughnuts to hand-stirred jams. She’s as much about heart as butter and sugar, weaving her life as a mom into the rhythm of her bakery. In fact, her kids inspired much of her cookbook, Made by Lia: Everyday Craft Baking. So when you bite into her St. Louie Cake, you’re not just tasting butter and sugar—you’re tasting the sweet spot where skill, resilience, and community come together. It takes its place alongside the great butter cakes already on Chewing The Fat, proof that sometimes the best desserts aren’t the polished, perfect ones, but the ones that deliver comfort, nostalgia, and just the right amount of goo. Here’s the recipe and, after it, the other great Butter Cakes on Chewing The Fat.
St. Louie Butter Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Here are the other irresistible Butter Cakes on Chewing The Fat:
