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Dessert

Washington Cake

A simple cake with sugar, butter, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, flour, lemon flavoring, and apple sauce or jelly filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Washington Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the egg, sweet milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and lemon flavoring; mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and stir until combined.

  5. Divide the batter between two round cake pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once baked, spread apple sauce or jelly on one cake layer.

  3. Place the second cake layer on top and dust with powdered sugar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  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 the sugar to add fat and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping bind the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour and stir until combined. Overmixing once flour is in develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stir just until no dry flour remains.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

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