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Dessert

Washington Pie

A sweet baked pie made with sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, baking soda, and optional custard or jelly filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the egg and then the milk.

  3. Sift the flour with the cream of tartar and add it to the mixture.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a few drops of boiling water and add it last.

  5. Beat the mixture hard for 1 to 2 minutes.

Bake

  1. Bake in jelly tins at 400°F (200°C) for 6 to 8 minutes.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill 2 layers with custard filling flavored with vanilla.

  2. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

  3. Serve cold.

  4. The remaining layers may be filled with jelly or other fillings to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps give the crumb a tender texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar or baking powder
Supplies the acid that works with baking soda to lift the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, moisture and flavor in the crumb.

The step that matters

Add the baking soda last. Baking soda reacts with acid as soon as it is wet, releasing gas that lifts the batter. Adding it last and baking promptly keeps that gas in the batter rather than lost before the cake sets.

“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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