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Dessert

Floating Island

A dessert of milk custard topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Floating Island

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

Make the egg whites

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add the egg whites to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir the mixture once or twice.

  4. Remove the egg whites with a slotted ladle.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the egg yolks.

  3. Mix in the corn starch with a little milk.

  4. Sweeten the mixture to taste.

  5. Add the mixture to the milk.

  6. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil.

  7. Flavor with vanilla or your preferred essence.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep glass dish.

  2. Top with the frothed egg whites.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they form the light, airy topping that floats on the custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the yolks thicken.
Corn starch
Stabilises the custard by thickening it so it holds its shape and resists weeping.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a gentle boil. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, so the custard should be heated gently and stirred. Cornstarch needs to reach a boil to fully thicken, so heat must be controlled rather than rushed.

“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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