Home › Creams and Custards › Floating Island
Floating Island
Make a custard of the yolks of six eggs, one quart milk, a small pinch of salt, sugar to taste; beat and strain yolks before adding to the milk; place custard in a large tin pan, and set in stove, stirring constantly until it boils, then remove, flavor with lemon or rose, and pour into a dish (a shallow, wide one is best), spread smoothly over the boiling hot custard the well-beaten whites, grating some loafsugar (some add grated cocoa-nut) on the top. Set the dish in a pan of ice-water and serve cold. Some prepare the whites by placing a table-spoon at a time on boiling water, lifting them out carefully, when cooked, with a skimmer and laying them gently on the float. This is the "old reliable recipe." - Mrs. W. W. W.
A stirred custard under a cap of meringue, written for a coal range and a tin pan. Two details in the original need rethinking before you start: the custard should not actually boil, and the whites are safer poached than spread on raw.
- Do not let it boilSix yolks in a quart of milk sets at about 175-180F; at a true boil it curdles into sweet scrambled egg. Cook it in a heavy saucepan or a bowl over simmering water, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon, and pull it off then. The original's "until it boils" may mean no more than the first bubbles at the edge of a thin tin pan, though the recipe does go on to call the custard "boiling hot."
- "Set in stove"Given the instruction to stir constantly until it boils, this points to the range top, over the heat, rather than inside the oven. A heavy-bottomed pan and lower heat give you far more margin than a thin tin one.
- The raw whitesBeaten whites spread over hot custard barely cook through. The alternative given at the end — dropping them a spoonful at a time onto boiling water and lifting them off with a skimmer — poaches them properly and is the better route. Pasteurized whites are the other option if you want the spread version.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar came as a hard refined cone that had to be grated or nipped with sugar shears. Superfine (caster) sugar is the direct replacement; a light dusting is all that is meant.
- Rose flavoringRose water was still a familiar flavoring in American kitchens at this date, and the recipe offers it as an alternative to lemon. About a teaspoon for a quart of custard is a reasonable modern amount, or steep the grated zest of a lemon in the milk and strain it out.
- Straining the yolksBeating and straining before they meet the milk removes the chalazae and any thread of set egg. Strain the finished custard again as you pour it out; it costs nothing and guarantees a smooth surface for the meringue.
- CoolingThe ice-water bath is not decorative — a quart of custard left at room temperature stays warm for a long time. Chill it down promptly and refrigerate; serve within a day.
- YieldA quart of custard with six yolks serves six to eight in shallow bowls.
Floating island is the English-language name for a dish close to what French cooks call oeufs à la neige — snow eggs — with île flottante generally used for the plated single-mound form, though French usage of the two names has never been rigid. Eighteenth-century English versions under the name were often more elaborate, built up in a glass or dish with cream, jelly and floating garnishes, and by the 1870s the name commonly attached to this plainer thing: boiled custard with meringue on top. The contributor's own note, calling it "the old reliable recipe," is typical of a book assembled from dishes submitted under contributors' names.