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Dessert

Floating Islands

A custard base topped with meringue and currant jelly.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the yolks of 5 eggs and 1 egg white with 5 tablespoons of sugar and flavoring.

  3. Stir in a little scalded milk to prevent curdling, then add the rest of the milk.

  4. Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens, then remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Pour the custard into a glass dish and refrigerate until very cold.

Top and decorate

  1. Beat the remaining 4 egg whites to stiff peaks, then gradually add 3 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the egg white mixture over the custard.

  3. Top each island with a teaspoon of currant jelly for decoration.

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.

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 + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 base of the custard, giving it liquid body and a creamy texture when thickened.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they set with heat; whites whip into the light, airy islands.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Currant jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity, and decorates the top of each island.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over low heat. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but high heat or overheating can scramble them into lumps. Cooking gently and stirring keeps the custard smooth, and stirring in a little hot milk first gradually warms the yolks so they do not curdle.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. 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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