Why it works: Milk and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓
Floating Island
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Beat the egg yolks and sugar until light.
Gradually pour in the boiling milk.
Return the mixture to a saucepan and heat, stirring constantly until it thickens.
Once cooled, add the almond extract and pour into a glass dish.
Top and decorate
Top with a meringue made from the beaten egg whites mixed with ½ cup of currant jelly.
Decorate with dots of jelly.
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.
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Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,800 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard and whites form the meringue topping.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets as it thickens with heat.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.
- Currant jelly
- Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to the meringue and the decorative dots.
The step that matters
Heating the custard until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken the milk as they heat, but if the mixture gets too hot or is not stirred constantly, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy. Stirring keeps the heat even.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, almond):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, almond. 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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