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Dessert

Washington Pie

A pie with a cake base, jam filling, and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Washington Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Line a pie pan with the crust.

  2. Fill the crust with rich yellow cake dough.

  3. Bake until golden.

Assemble and brown

  1. Let cool.

  2. Spread blackberry or raspberry jam over the cooled cake.

  3. Top with a heavy meringue.

  4. Place in the oven at 400°F (200°C) to brown the meringue.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Blackberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Blackberry + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together472 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pie crust
Holds the cake batter in the pan, giving the dessert its shape and a sturdy base.
Rich yellow cake dough
Forms the soft, tender cake layer that makes up most of the dessert.
Blackberry or raspberry jam
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture between the cooled cake and the meringue.
Egg whites and sugar (meringue)
Forms a sweet, airy topping that browns in the oven for color and contrast.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Meringue needs enough heat to brown without the cake underneath overheating or drying out. Watch it closely, since sugar browns quickly once the oven heat reaches it.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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