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Dessert

Floating Island

A custard dessert with sponge cake, meringue, and candied cherries.

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

Why it works: Milk and rum work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 967 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the well-beaten egg yolks.

  3. Add the sugar.

  4. Cook over boiling water until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

  5. Flavor with the rum or extract. Add a pinch of salt.

Assemble the dessert

  1. Place slices of stale sponge cake or ladyfingers in a glass dish.

  2. Moisten the cake slices with a little hot milk.

  3. Pour the hot custard over the cake.

Top and garnish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Gradually add the sugar to the egg whites.

  2. Spread the meringue over the custard.

  3. Garnish with candied cherries or bits of red jelly.

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 + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Milk
Forms the body of the custard and soaks into the cake, keeping it moist.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook, giving it a smooth, creamy set.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam, they form the light, airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and meringue and helps the whites hold their stiff foam.
Sponge cake or ladyfingers
Forms the soft base that soaks up the hot custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over boiling water until smooth and creamy. Egg yolks thicken with gentle heat. If the custard runs too hot it can curdle or scramble, so cook it slowly over simmering water and stir it steadily.

“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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