If your attempts at baking gooey butter cake at home have turned out like ours (aka epic fail), you’ll be pleased to hear that Park Avenue Coffee aims to help. The Lafayette Square coffee shop is now offering boxed mixes for its famed gooey butter cake in its three most popular flavors: traditional, double chocolate and white chocolate-raspberry. The mixes, which are available at Straub’s and require that home cooks only add cold ingredients, are part of Park Avenue’s launch of Ann and Allen Baking Co., which takes its name from the middle names of owner Dale Schotte and his sister (and Park Avenue’s baker), Marilyn Scull; look for Park Avenue’s other baked goods to appear under the new name in coming months. In the meantime, Schotte and Scull will be spreading the gooey butter word to San Francisco next week, where the pair’s gooey butter and brownie mixes will be featured at the annual Fancy Foods Show.
This article appears in Jan 1-31, 2010.