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Dessert

Washington Pie

A sweet baked dessert with layers of custard or jelly, made from sugar, flour, butter, egg, milk, and leavening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the egg and then the milk.

  3. Sift the flour with the cream of tartar and add it to the mixture.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a few drops of boiling water and add it to the batter. Beat the mixture hard for 1 to 2 minutes.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in jelly tins at 400°F (200°C) for 6 to 8 minutes.

  2. Fill 2 layers with custard filling flavored with vanilla. The remaining layers can be filled with jelly or other fillings to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

  2. Serve cold.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the sponge-like layers together.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Cream of tartar or baking powder
Acid or leavening agent that helps the cake rise and become light.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the batter to produce gas, helping the layers rise.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture hard for 1 to 2 minutes. Vigorous beating after the baking soda is added helps distribute the leavening evenly and traps air for a light, even rise. Overbeating after the flour is in can make the crumb tough, so timing matters.

“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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