Washington Pie
Mix and bake same as Cream Pie. Put raspberry jam or jelly between layers and sprinkle top with powdered sugar.
This is a variation entry: it borrows the batter and method from the book's Cream Pie and changes only the filling and finish. To make it you need that base recipe, and a little translation of what "pie" meant in a New England cake chapter.
- It is a cake, not a pieWashington Pie is a plain butter cake baked in round tins and split or layered, then filled. The name is usually explained by the shallow pie plates such cakes were baked in, though that is a traditional explanation rather than a documented one.
- The base batterThe book's Cream Pie is a one-egg butter cake; a typical period proportion runs to about 1/4 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, 1/2 cup milk, 1 1/2 cups flour and 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, but take the exact quantities from the book's own Cream Pie. Any reliable single-layer butter cake batter will behave the same way in these pans.
- PansTwo 8- or 9-inch round layer tins or two glass pie plates, buttered and floured. The batter is meant to bake shallow; a single deep pan will give you a cake that needs splitting and a different bake time.
- OvenThe recipe gives no temperature or time. For shallow layers, a moderate oven of around 350F for about 20 to 25 minutes will do. The cake is done when it springs back at the center and the edges just pull from the tin.
- Jam, not custardThe difference from the cream-filled version is chiefly the filling, plus the sugared top. Use a thick, well-set raspberry jam or a firm jelly, warmed and stirred smooth so it spreads without tearing the crumb. A loose modern preserve will soak in and slide out at the sides.
- Powdered sugarIn nineteenth-century usage this generally meant a finely ground sugar, which period cookbooks often list separately from confectioners' sugar; sift whichever you use over the top through a fine strainer. Do it shortly before serving; on a moist cake it dissolves within a few hours.
- YieldTwo 8-inch layers give eight to ten modest wedges. It is best the day it is made, as there is no frosting to seal the surface.
Washington Pie belongs to a small family of New England cake-pies -- cakes baked in pie plates and filled -- that also includes Boston Cream Pie and Martha Washington Pie. The name is generally traced to the patriotic naming fashion that attached Washington's name to everything from cakes to pies to breakfast bread in the decades after independence, rather than to any documented connection with the man or his household. The dish's real interest is technical: a shallow butter cake baked in a pie plate could be split, filled and served without frosting.