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Dessert

Washington Cake

A buttery raisin cake flavored with nutmeg or mace, baked with eggs, flour, sugar, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Washington Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

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 beaten egg yolks, milk, flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.

  3. Fold in the raisins and beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Egg yolks add richness and structure, while whipped whites lighten the batter as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps hold air for a fine texture.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the cake lift. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, while vigorous stirring would deflate it and produce a denser cake.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg, raisin. 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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