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Dessert

Floating Island

A chilled dessert of lemon cream foam, Madeira wine, egg white froth, currant jelly, calf's foot jelly, and candied sweetmeats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Floating Island

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cream

  1. Grate the yellow rind of the lemon into a pint of cream.

  2. Add the Madeira wine and sweeten with loaf sugar.

  3. Whip the mixture with a chocolate mill until it forms a strong froth.

  4. Drain the froth in a sieve overnight.

Build the layers

  1. Layer the froth in a deep glass dish.

  2. Place the Naples biscuit in the center of the froth.

  3. Beat the egg white to a strong froth.

  4. Roll a sprig of myrtle in the egg white froth.

  5. Insert the myrtle into the Naples biscuit.

  6. Layer the froth with currant jelly slices.

  7. Pour over the strong calf's foot jelly until it looks like glass.

Set and decorate

  1. Let it stand until cold and stiff.

  2. Decorate the top with rock candied sweetmeats.

  3. Decorate the top with green sprigs.

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

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

  2. Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cream
Whipped into a froth that forms the light, airy body of the dessert.
Egg white
Whipped into a stable foam that adds lightness and volume to the topping.
Strong calf's foot jelly
Gelatin-rich layer that sets firm and clear, giving the dessert its stiff structure.
Madeira wine
Adds aroma and a rich, fortified flavour to the cream.
Currant jelly
Adds tart fruit flavour and a sweet-tart contrast to the rich cream layers.

The step that matters

Draining the froth overnight. Cream froth releases liquid as it stands. Draining it well lets the layers hold their shape instead of turning watery and collapsing under the jelly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, cream, madeira wine, sugar, egg, biscuit):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, cream, madeira wine, sugar, egg, biscuit. 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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