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Dessert

Washington Pie

A custard pie made with sugar, sweet milk, butter, eggs, flour, and a wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 cake

  1. Combine one cupful of sugar, one-half cupful sweet milk, one-half cupful butter, one egg, one teaspoonful cream of tartar, one-half teaspoonful soda, and one and one-half cupfuls flour; bake in two tins.

Make the custard

  1. For custard, combine one cupful of milk or cream, one-half cupful of sugar, one egg, and one tablespoonful of corn starch.

  2. Beat the sugar, egg, and corn starch together.

  3. Stir the mixture into boiling milk and cook until thick; flavor to taste.

Make the wine sauces

  1. For wine sauce No. 1, rub one cupful of sugar and one-half cupful of butter to a cream.

  2. Stir in one-half cupful of wine.

  3. Set the sauce in a dish of hot water to dissolve.

  4. For wine sauce No. 2, take a lump of butter the size of an egg and two tablespoonfuls of corn starch.

  5. Melt the butter and stir in the corn starch.

  6. Add the mixture to one pint of boiling water, one cupful of sugar, nutmeg, and wine or brandy to taste.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

921Calories
28 gProtein
32 gFat
122 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Bind the batter and custard and add richness and structure as they set.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with soda to give the cake lift and a tender crumb.
Soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to release gas and raise the cake.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard and sauce so they become smooth and set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness in the cake and richness to the sauce.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stir the custard into boiling milk and cook until thick. Corn starch thickens only when heated enough, and stirring keeps it smooth; undercooked starch leaves a raw, floury taste and a thin custard.

“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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