Farina Sponge

This is a cold molded dessert built on raw egg white, and nothing in it is ever heated after the egg goes in. That single detail is the problem.

• The raw white is never cookedThe stiffly beaten white is folded into already-cooked farina, molded and served. Whether the farina is freshly made or left over, no step in the recipe brings the egg white above a safe temperature, and even hot cereal folded with beaten white and molded is not held at any measured temperature.
• Why that matters hereRaw or lightly handled shell eggs carry a risk of Salmonella Enteritidis, which can be present inside an intact, clean egg. A sweetened starch mixture standing at room temperature while it sets is a hospitable medium, and nothing in the dish afterwards reduces the risk.
• The soft custard compounds itThe soft custard is not a fix -- the suggested sauce is a stirred custard, thickened only to the coating stage and cooked separately. Whatever temperature it reaches, it is poured over the mold and does not cook the raw white already set inside it.
• Reheated cereal is not a fixThe recipe's closing note about thinning with hot milk or water is ambiguous as to whether it comes before or after the egg, and in either case a little hot liquid stirred into two cups of cooked cereal will not raise the whole mass to any meaningful temperature.
• What to do insteadIf you want a molded farina or semolina pudding, use a current recipe that either cooks the egg into the hot cereal to a measured temperature or uses no egg at all. Sweetened cooked farina chilled in a mold, served with cream, needs no egg to hold its shape.
• On the ingredient itselfFarina is finely milled wheat, sold in the United States as Cream of Wheat or plain "farina"; semolina is the coarser meal milled from durum wheat. Either cooks to the stiff, sliceable porridge this recipe assumes.