Skip to main content
Dessert

Floating Island

A dessert of beaten egg yolks and milk, folded with stiff egg whites and flavored with vanilla or bitter almond, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Floating Island

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until light.

  2. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  3. Gradually pour the hot milk into the beaten yolks, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Return the mixture to the fire and boil until it begins to thicken, then remove from heat.

  5. Once cool, flavor with vanilla or bitter almond.

Poach the whites

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Drop the beaten egg whites into the boiling milk, one spoonful at a time.

  3. Remove the boiled egg whites and place them on a platter.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep glass dish, place the egg whites on top, and garnish with jelly or candied fruit.

  2. Serve cold.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  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 + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Egg whites
Whip into stiff foam that is poached and floats on top of the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens when heated with the yolks.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the yolks whip to a light, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the fire and boil until it begins to thicken. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat, but overheating can curdle the custard. Stop as soon as it coats a spoon, then cool it before serving.

“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.

More floating island recipes

Apple 3Strawberry 3 See all 214 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes