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 milk base
Sweeten the milk to your taste and add wine if desired.
Make the froth and serve
Whisk the egg whites to a dry froth.
Add 1 teaspoon of jelly and 1 teaspoon of sugar to each egg white.
Pile the froth on the milk and serve immediately, as the froth will fall.
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 + 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).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,734 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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 sweet liquid base that the floating froth rests on.
- Egg whites
- Whisked into a foam that gives the dish its light, airy structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dish and helps stabilise the whisked egg white foam.
- Jelly
- Adds fruity sweetness and flavour to the egg white froth.
The step that matters
Pile the froth on the milk and serve immediately. Whipped egg white foam is unstable and slowly deflates and weeps over time, so it should be served right after it is piled on the milk to keep its height and lightness.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar. 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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