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Dessert

Floating Island

A dessert of meringue floating on a custard base flavored with lemon, orange, or vanilla.

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 lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meringue

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add 2 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating.

  3. Flavor the egg whites as desired.

Poach the meringue

  1. Bring 1 quart of milk to a boil.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the beaten egg whites into the boiling milk, being careful not to overcrowd.

  3. Once cooked, remove the egg whites and place them on a platter.

Make the custard and serve

  1. In the boiling milk, add the beaten yolks and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch dissolved in a little cold milk, along with sugar to taste.

  2. Flavor the mixture with lemon, orange, or vanilla.

  3. Once cooled, pour the mixture into a dish and gently place the egg whites on top.

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 + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon 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

Eggs
Whites whip into a stable foam for the floating meringue; yolks thicken the custard.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard and the poaching liquid for the meringue.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard sets to a smooth, pourable body.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and the custard.

The step that matters

Poaching the meringue. Egg white foam is delicate and can collapse or toughen if the milk boils too hard or the spoonfuls are crowded, so they should cook gently in a simmer and be given room to float and cook through.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk. 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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