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Dessert

Washington Pie

A layered cake dessert with sweet cream filling, baked and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Washington Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bake two cakes as for Washington pie.

  2. In a bowl, combine sweet cream and white sugar.

  3. Beat the mixture until it is thick enough to hold its shape, then add vanilla.

Assemble and chill

  1. Spread the cream mixture between the cakes and on top.

  2. Bake the pie a day in advance and refrigerate it wrapped in paper until very cold.

Serve

  1. Serve with fresh strawberries or raspberries.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Cakes
Provide the sponge layers that give the pie its structure and body.
Sweet cream
Whipped into a thick filling that adds richness and a soft, creamy texture.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the whipped cream hold its shape.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that rounds out the flavor of the cream filling.

The step that matters

Beat the cream only until thick. Cream whips as air is trapped in its fat network. Beating past the point of holding its shape can make it grainy and eventually separate into butter and liquid, ruining the filling's texture.

“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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