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Dessert

Floating Island

A dessert of whipped egg whites with apple puree, served over raspberry or beetroot jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Floating Island

Why it works: Apple and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apple

  1. Scald the apple until it's just ripe.

  2. Remove the skin and core, then pass the apple through a sieve.

Make the froth

  1. Beat the egg whites with sugar and orange juice until frothy.

  2. Mix in the sieved apple until well combined.

Serve

  1. Serve the froth on raspberry cream or color it with jelly before serving.

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. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  2. Orange + raspberrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together521 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Apple + raspberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the dish its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the froth and helps stabilize the beaten egg white foam.
Apple
Adds moisture, body and fruity flavor to the froth.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and brightness, and helps stabilize the egg white foam.

The step that matters

Mix in the sieved apple gently. Egg white foam holds air in a thin protein film. Overmixing or adding heavy liquid too vigorously can break that film and deflate the froth, so the apple should be folded in only until combined.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, egg, sugar, raspberry. 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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