Skip to main content
Dessert

Floating Island

A custard made from milk, cinnamon, lemon peel, eggs, topped with whipped egg whites and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Floating Island

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk with cinnamon and lemon peel.

  2. When almost cold, strain the mixture.

  3. Mix in the beaten egg white and egg yolks.

  4. Stir over low heat until thick.

  5. Pour into a dish and stir occasionally until cold.

Finish and serve

  1. Whisk the two egg whites until stiff.

  2. Top the custard with the whipped egg whites and 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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Cinnamon + guavatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  4. Lemon + guavatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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 as they set over low heat, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Egg whites
Whipped stiff, they form the light, airy floating topping on the custard.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard that the egg proteins set into.
Guava quince jelly or red currant jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity to the topping and contrasts with the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over low heat until thick. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, and high heat can scramble the eggs and make the custard grainy. Gentle, steady stirring keeps it smooth.

Swap the guava

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Guavathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, lemon, egg. 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.

More floating island recipes

Apple 3Strawberry 3 See all 214 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes