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Dessert

Washington Pie

A layered apple pie made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and fresh apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

  5. Pour the batter into thin layers on baking sheets.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden brown, then remove from the oven.

  2. Spread thick layers of fresh apple sauce between the baked cakes.

  3. Serve warm for the best flavor.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the creamed mixture hold air for a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creams with the butter to trap air and adds sweetness and browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cakes as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the layers rise.
Cream of tartar
Supplies acidity that activates the baking soda and helps give a tender texture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.. Adding dry ingredients gradually and stopping once smooth keeps the batter evenly mixed and avoids overworking the flour, which would make the layers tough.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, cream, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, cream, sauce. 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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