Philadelphia style German Butter Cake

I wanted to make some comfort food....and had been reading about Gooey Butter Cake from St. Louis and the southern US......which uses a yellow cake mix and an eggy cream cheese topping....

But I remembered reading about an older recipe, with a yeast base from German bakeries in Philadelphia.

That is the one I set out to make, gluten free!  This recipe was easy enough to modify and I even cut it in half...[since one could easily be induced to overeat on this treat! Having less of it to start with seemed wise!]

Above you see the two batters, first the bottom cake batter which has yeast and sits and rises for an hour before being spread in the pan.  Without gluten [I used King Arthur gluten free flour],  the batter didn't rise much or build up any elasticity.....

The topping batter is then put on top, in little "plops".  Then into the preheated oven.

It cooked beautifully and smelled divine! Out it came.....the top crunchy and fragile as expected.....

Here is the first piece.  Yummy....even if all of the liquid butter and egg topping sort of descended down into the yeast dough rather than staying  up on top to make more of a "gooey" pudding effect.

It tastes like a very buttery pound cake....and is great with fruit.

Perhaps if the gluten free flour I was using had contained Xanthan gum, it might have seemed more like a traditional yeast dough.....