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Dessert

Floating Island

A dessert of thickened milk custard topped with meringue and jelly.

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

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Floating Island

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and flour until well combined.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk and cook until thick as cream.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool, then add your choice of flavoring.

  5. Pour the mixture into glasses.

Make the islands and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the egg whites into boiling water and cook until puffed up.

  3. Remove the egg whites from the water and place them on top of the cream in the glasses.

  4. Chill and serve with a small piece of jelly on top of the egg whites.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 milk into a rich custard as they cook.
Egg whites
Whip into stiff peaks that poach into light, airy islands.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds body to the mixture.
Flour
Stabilizes the custard so it thickens without curdling.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over gentle heat. Egg yolks can scramble if the mixture gets too hot or cooks too fast. Cooking slowly in a double boiler and stirring keeps it smooth and thickened, and the flour helps guard against curdling.

“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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