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Dessert

Washington Cake

A layered cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking soda, milk, cream of tartar, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Washington Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs and add to the mixture.

  3. Whip the egg whites until light and foamy, then fold into the mixture.

  4. Sift in 2 cups of flour and mix gently.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk, then add the cream of tartar and mix quickly with the batter.

  6. Sift in the remaining 2 cups of flour and the extract, mixing quickly.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into round pans to a depth of half an inch and bake.

  2. For the cream, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the pulverized sugar.

  3. Spread a layer of cream on a sheet of cake, add another sheet, repeat with cream, and top with a third sheet.

  4. Sprinkle a heavy coating of pulverized sugar on top.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they lighten the batter and set the structure of the layers.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness to the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the layers together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and milk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda and helps stabilise the whites.

The step that matters

Mix the batter quickly after adding the baking soda and cream of tartar. Baking soda and cream of tartar begin producing gas as soon as they are mixed with liquid. Delaying the mixing or baking lets that gas escape, so the cakes may rise less and come out flatter.

“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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