Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda, then gradually add to the mixture.
Flavor the batter to your taste.
Bake and assemble
Pour the batter into round cake tins.
Bake until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
Once cooled, spread raspberry jam between the two layers.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Add structure and richness as they set during baking, and help the batter rise.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake, tenderizes its crumb, and helps it brown.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the eggs and helping the leavening work well.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
The step that matters
Adding the eggs one at a time. Beating each egg in fully lets the fat and eggs form a stable emulsion. Adding them all at once can cause curdling, which may leave the batter dense or uneven.
Swap the raspberry
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Raspberrythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, egg, cream. 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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