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Eggs, as Snow
Separate the yolks from the whites of six eggs. Beat the whites to a froth, with a little finely-powdered sugar. Have ready a full pint of new milk well sweetened and flavoured with vanilla, orange-flower water, or rose-water. Put it into a saucepan on the fire. When it boils, drop in, one by one, table-spoonfuls of the frothed egg, and when set, remove each with a spoon. By varying the quantity dropped in, a handsomer dish will be obtained than by keeping to one uniform size. Arrange the patches of snow on a large dish, and group the larger ones in the centre. When the milk has cooled a little, mix the egg-yolks slowly and very gradually with it till all are used, and it has become thick. Pour this amongst and around, but not over the snow. Serve cold as a supper dish.
This is the dish French cooks call œufs à la neige — poached meringues on a thin pouring custard. The whole thing turns on heat control: the milk must never actually boil while the whites are in it.
- The hinge: poach, do not boilDespite the instruction to drop the whites in when the milk boils, take the pan off the boil first and hold it at a bare shiver, around 170-180F. Rolling liquid tears the meringues apart and makes them tough; two to three minutes a side, turning once, is enough to set them.
- Quantities left unstatedNo sugar amounts are given. Roughly 2 tablespoons of caster sugar beaten into the six whites, and 3-4 tablespoons dissolved in the milk, gives a workable balance. Flavouring water: 1 to 2 teaspoons, or a split vanilla pod steeped in the milk.
- A pint, and "new milk"Cassell's is a British book, so a pint is 20 fl oz — about 2½ US cups. "New milk" simply means fresh whole milk, as opposed to skimmed or the previous day's; use whole milk, or replace a quarter of it with cream for a richer sauce.
- Finishing the custardPouring hot milk onto the yolks off the heat may or may not thicken it, depending on how hot the pan still is. Temper the yolks with the hot milk, return the mixture to a low heat, and stir until it coats the back of a spoon, 175-180F. Above about 185F it will scramble.
- Rescuing a split custardIf it does curdle, tip it at once into a cold bowl and whisk hard, or blitz it briefly with a stick blender. A teaspoon of cornflour slaked into the yolks first is cheap insurance.
- Beating the whitesAdd the sugar only once the whites hold soft peaks, or they will slacken. A copper or scrupulously clean bowl and a pinch of cream of tartar give meringues firm enough to survive the spoon.
- Assembly and servingDrain the poached whites on a cloth or kitchen paper before arranging them, or leaking liquid will thin the custard. Pour the sauce around, never over, as directed — the point is a white island on a pale yellow lake.
- YieldSix eggs and a pint of milk serve four to six as a light supper or dessert. Chill for at least two hours; both the meringues and the custard are best cold, and the dish does not keep past a day.
Snow-eggs are a long-running sweet-course trick in European cookery: whites whipped to a froth, set in hot liquid, and floated on a thin egg custard. English books had "snow" dishes from the sixteenth century onward, usually meaning beaten whites piled over a rosemary sprig or an apple; the poached version is the French œufs à la neige, though the nineteenth-century English "floating island" did not always mean the same dish. Its appearance here under the principles of cookery is telling — it is really an exercise in what a cook can do with six eggs and a pint of milk, using the whites and the yolks in two different ways so nothing is wasted. The flavourings are of their period: orange-flower and rose water were staples of the Victorian store cupboard, and vanilla gradually displaced them as extract became cheaper.