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Dessert

Washington Pie

A layered pie with a sweet cake base and apple filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Washington Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs very light.

  2. Add the sugar and beat until thick.

  3. Mix in the sweet milk.

  4. Combine the flour and baking powder, then add to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the melted butter.

  6. Bake in layers.

Make the filling

  1. Grate the sour apples and lemon rind.

  2. Cook the filling for a few minutes.

  3. Add corn-starch if the filling is too thin.

  4. Let the filling cool before spreading it on the cake.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked eggs trap air, giving the layers lift and a light, tender crumb.
Flour
Starch and gluten form the structure that holds the cake layers together.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the layers rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, beaten with the eggs, helps build a stable foam.
Sour apples
Provide tartness and moisture to the filling.
Corn-starch
Thickens the filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding corn-starch to the filling. Corn-starch thickens when heated with liquid, but adding too much can make the filling gluey. Add it gradually and cook until the filling thickens, so it sets well enough to spread without running out of the layers.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, flour, butter, lemon, corn):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, flour, butter, lemon, corn. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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