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Strawberry Float
Heat a quart of milk with one cup of sugar and a pinch of salt. When at boiling point add one tablespoon of cornstarch which has been dissolved in a little of the milk (cold). Cook for three minutes, when add the beaten yolks of three eggs; whip together two minutes and remove from stove, letting cool. Meantime have ready a pint of sweet berries mashed with one-half cup of sugar. Let stand an hour then strain. Whip the whites of the eggs, and two tablespoons powdered sugar, then the juice from the berries; place on top of the custard when the latter is ice cold and serve quickly.
A stirred custard with a strawberry meringue floated on top — the old American "float," close kin to floating island. Nothing here is difficult, but the custard and the meringue both fail in predictable ways.
- The hinge: never let the custard boil after the yolks go inOnce the beaten yolks are added, the mixture must stay below a simmer or it will scramble into grains. Keep the heat low, stir constantly for the two minutes, and pull it off the moment it coats the spoon.
- Quantities in modern termsA quart of milk is 4 cups; a pint of berries is about 12 oz, or roughly 2 cups hulled and mashed. Whole milk gives the body the recipe assumes — skim will stay thin even with the cornstarch.
- Slake the cornstarch properlyReserve a few tablespoons of the cold milk before heating and stir the cornstarch into it to a smooth slurry. Added dry to hot milk it lumps immediately and no amount of whipping will recover it.
- Raw egg whitesThe whites are whipped and served uncooked. If that matters in your household — small children, pregnancy, anyone immune-compromised — use pasteurized egg whites, which will whip up, though they may take noticeably longer and give a little less volume.
- Berry juice will slacken the meringueWhip the whites to firm peaks with the powdered sugar first, then add the strained strawberry juice a spoonful at a time. Poured in at once, the acid and liquid collapse the foam into pink froth.
- Don't waste the strained pulpStraining is for a clear juice that keeps the meringue pale pink, but the mashed fruit left behind is perfectly good. Spoon it under the custard or serve it alongside.
- "Ice cold" means fully chilledGive the custard several hours in the refrigerator, with plastic wrap on the surface to stop a skin forming. A warm custard will slacken the meringue on contact.
- Serve at onceThe instruction to "serve quickly" is literal — a sugared raw-white foam begins to weep soon after it is spooned on. Assemble at the table if you can. Serves six to eight in glasses or shallow bowls.
"Float" was a common American name for what English cookery called floating island: a soft boiled custard with something white and airy set adrift on it. Nineteenth-century versions used whipped cream, plain meringue, or — as here — meringue tinted and flavoured with fruit juice, which made the dish seasonal rather than merely rich. The cornstarch suggests the period: cornstarch became a cheap and widely available pantry staple in American kitchens from the 1840s onward, and it thickens a custard that would otherwise lean on more yolks. Strawberries appear in a collection like this because they were among the earliest fruits of the year in much of the country and did not keep long after picking; a float turned a single pint into a dessert for a whole table.