Legend has it that gooey butter cake was created by accident, at some unspecified moment in the first half of the 20th century in St. Louis, in an unnamed bakery, with an unclear set of ingredients. A baker lost his way – or her way – while baking a cake. The specifics of this legend have been lost to time.

You might be able to guess where this goes: The resulting dessert was all wrong, but the baker, pinching pennies, decided to sell it anyway, and customers thought it was just right. Gooey butter cake – the legend and the dessert – was born.