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Dessert

Floating Island

A dessert of stiffened currant jelly, lemon juice, and egg whites served over warm milk or cream curdled with rennet wine.

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

Why it works: Lemon and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,157 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

Make the island

  1. Beat together currant jelly, lemon juice, and egg whites until stiff.

  2. Place the mixture in the center of a dish and dress with sweetmeats.

Make the custard

  1. Warm the milk or cream until lukewarm, then add rennet wine.

  2. When it curdles, use a whip to turn it over.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately; it can also be enjoyed with sugar and cream.

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. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the island its light, airy structure.
New milk or cream
Forms the base that sets into a soft curd once rennet is added.
Rennet wine
Contains rennet, which causes the warm milk to curdle and set.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to the whipped mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the currant jelly.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to a stiff foam so air is trapped in the protein network; under-whipped whites collapse and the island loses its lightness.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, egg, milk, wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, milk, wine. 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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