Photography by Lori K. Tate
The best summer job I ever had was working on an assembly line at my father’s machine company. Though I don’t remember the exact year (I think it was the summer before seventh grade), I do remember working away while Z100 blared out Top 40 tunes all afternoon. Remember that “We don’t have to take our clothes off” song? I heard that over and over that summer.
Before you start reciting child labor laws, know that I had a worker’s permit and that the work I was doing did not involve machinery. I was merely gluing rubber caps on printer motors. Yes, we had to use paint thinner to get the black glue off of our hands at the end of the day, but I had a ball — and I made a friend.
An older gentleman named Bill Dorton worked beside me. He had reddish blonde hair, was probably in his upper 50s or early 60s, and always rolled up his jeans. One day while we were talking, he asked if I’d ever eaten Lemon Gooey. When he discovered that I hadn’t, he proceeded to share the recipe with me. I scribbled the information down and delivered it to my mom when I got home. We made our first batch that night.
It was instant goodness, and it immediately knocked mom’s awesome chocolate pan cake out of the number one slot in our family’s dessert rankings. I’m happy to report that Lemon Gooey still holds the top position, though during my college years it was challenged by my mom’s key lime pie. (Apparently we are partial to citrus desserts.)
There’s so much to love about Bill Dorton’s Lemon Gooey. First of all, every time I make it, I think of that summer. Second, it’s delicious, and there’s nothing healthy about it. Third, it’s easy to make, but it doesn’t look or taste easy to make (important qualities in any dessert). Fourth, you can bake it for any occasion. Not all desserts can swing that. Just try showing up at a Fourth of July picnic with a Yule Log cake.
While I enjoy baking, my daughter, Margot, is obsessed with it. We watch every baking show we can find, and sometimes I make videos of her when she’s whipping up a treat. After taking a bite of something, she often critiques the dish in traditional Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry style, complete with the accent. (Both are from The Great British Baking Show.) Baking is something fun we can do together, and it’s also a sneaky way to practice fractions.
The Tots and I made a batch of Lemon Gooey right before my mom went into the hospital this summer. We gave some of it to our friends who had just moved into a new house, and because it keeps so well, we gave some to the nurses at the hospital that cared so lovingly for my mother. You can buy all the gifts in the world, but taking the time to bake for someone is special because it makes them feel special. It says, “Hey, I think enough of you to subtract an hour of my Netflix binge-watching schedule to create something yummy for you.” Try to do that with a Whitman’s Sampler.
Since my mom has been home, people have brought over a ton of food for my folks. There’s the shell casserole from my cousin, the cold cuts and rotisserie chicken from church friends, and the peach cobbler from neighbors. These are all Winks of Goodness because each morsel means that someone cares that my parents are getting what they need during a difficult time. You can’t measure that on a nutrition label.
I’m not sure when I’ll bake another batch of Lemon Gooey. My friend, Meredith, won’t let me into her house unless I bring some with me, so I suppose the next time she has a dinner party, I’ll make some. But whatever the occasion, you can bet that when I pull out my hand mixer, I’ll think of that summer working alongside Bill Dorton and that evening when my mom dropped whatever she was doing to help me make my first batch of Lemon Gooey. Neither of us had any idea that we were creating a family legacy. We were just a mother and daughter doing something fun together.
Bill Dorton’s Lemon Gooey
Ingredients
1 box of lemon cake mix (I prefer Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme.)
1 box of confectioners sugar
1 8-ounce package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese (Why would you even think of using low-fat?)
3 eggs
1 stick of butter, unsalted and melted
Instructions
Mix cake mix with 1 egg and butter with a hand mixer. Mixture will be stiff, pat in bottom of sheet pan. (I use a butter-sprayed glass dish.) Set aside. Mix softened cream cheese, confectioners sugar and 2 eggs. Beat 5 minutes with a hand mixer. Pour over the top of mixture in pan. Bake 30 to 35 minutes at 350 degrees. It’s best to let it sit overnight before serving. Somehow that seals in the gooey factor.
NOTE: This recipe is also in the Recipes for a Cold Springs Pig-Nic cookbook published in 1987. Olivia Jones submitted it. We’re all connected in Cabarrus County.