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.
Make the batter
Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Add the cream, baking soda, and well-beaten eggs; mix well.
Flavor the mixture with lemon and stir in the flour.
Pour the batter into round tin pans or a wooden box cover.
Bake and assemble
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.
Once cooled, place one cake on a plate and spread with marmalade or jelly.
Top with another cake and frost if desired.
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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Butter + flourtop 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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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 add structure and richness to the cake crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the batter to help the cake rise and lighten.
- Marmalade or jelly
- Adds sweetness and fruity moisture between the two cake layers.
The step that matters
Creaming the sugar and butter until smooth. Beating sugar into butter traps air bubbles that expand in the oven and give the cake its lift and fine texture. Under-creaming leaves a dense cake, while the batter should be mixed just enough once flour goes in to avoid toughness.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cream, egg, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, egg, flour. 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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