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Dessert

Washington Cake

A buttery cake with flour, eggs, sour cream, nutmeg, cinnamon, rose water, and floured citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Washington Cake

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the sour cream (or milk), nutmeg, cinnamon, and baking soda dissolved in warm water.

  5. Gradually add the flour, then the rose water and floured citron.

Fold and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

  2. Pour the batter into a loaf or cake pan and bake for about 1 hour 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it helps create a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whites beaten to stiff peaks lighten and lift the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sour cream or milk
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Overmixing or stirring vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a dense cake, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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