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Dessert

Floating Island

A layered dessert of pink currant jelly‑coated cream, sliced almond sponge cake, raspberry jam, and lemon‑flavoured whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Floating Island

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Take a quart of rich cream and divide it in half.

  2. Sweeten one pint of the cream with loaf sugar, and stir in enough currant jelly to color it a fine pink.

  3. Put the pink cream into a glass bowl, and place in the centre a pile of sliced almond-sponge cake or lady cake, each slice spread thickly with raspberry jam or marmalade, and laid evenly on top of one another.

  4. Prepare the other pint of cream, flavor it with a few drops of lemon oil, and beat it with a whisk to a stiff froth.

  5. Heap the whipped cream over the cake pile, covering it entirely.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Rich cream
Forms the pink custard base and the whipped topping, giving richness and a light, airy texture.
Loaf sugar (in the method)
Sweetens the cream base.
Currant jelly (in the method)
Colors the cream pink and adds fruity sweetness.
Raspberry jam or marmalade (in the method)
Adds fruit flavor and moisture to the cake layers.
Lady cake or almond-sponge cake (in the method)
Provides the absorbent base layers that soak up the cream and jam.

The step that matters

Beating the whipped cream to a stiff froth. Cream must be whipped until it holds its shape; underwhipped cream slumps and cannot cover the cake pile neatly, while overwhipping turns it grainy and can make it separate.

“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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