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Floating Island
1/2 pint (I cup) milk 4 small sponge cakes 3 tablespoonfuls shredded almonds tract 1 teaspoonful vanilla ex- 4 tablespoonfuls sugar Jam or jelly Make a custard with the yolks of eggs, milk, vanilla extract and three tablespoonfuls of the sugar. Slice the sponge cakes into a glass dish, spread with jam or jelly, and cover with the custard. Beat up the whites of eggs to a stiff froth, then beat in the remainder of the sugar. Have a pan of hot water, a plate and a skimmer. Drop a spoonful at a time of egg white into the water,
The ingredient list has come through the scanner scrambled, and the text breaks off mid-instruction. The method is recoverable, but two things need stating before you start.
- The eggs are missingThe list gives no number of eggs, though the method calls for both yolks and whites. For 1 cup of milk, two to three eggs is the standard proportion for a pouring custard; anything more and you are into set-custard territory. This is a genuine gap in the original, not a conversion problem.
- "1/2 pint (1 cup) milk"The parenthesis is the book's own, and it tells you this is an American pint of 16 fl oz, not the imperial 20 fl oz pint. Take it at its word: 1 cup.
- The custard is the hingeYolks, milk and sugar go into a bowl over barely simmering water and are stirred until they coat the back of a spoon, around 175-180F. Direct heat or a real boil scrambles it. Strain it as it comes off the heat and it will be smooth even if you have pushed it slightly too far.
- Poaching the meringueThe text stops where the spoonfuls of meringue go into the hot water. The water should be hot but not boiling — around 180F — and the islands need only a minute or two a side before they firm enough to lift out with the skimmer onto the plate to drain. Rolling water tears them apart.
- Sponge cakes"Four small sponge cakes" means individual sponge fingers or small plain sponge buns, not four layer cakes. Trifle sponges, savoiardi or a few slices of plain sponge loaf all serve.
- Shredded almondsBlanched almonds cut into slivers; packaged flaked or slivered almonds will stand in, though flaked are sliced flat and slivered cut lengthwise. The text breaks off before it says what becomes of them, but they are presumably scattered over the finished dish.
- Assembly and chillingCustard poured hot over sponge will soak it through; let it cool a little, then chill the dish before floating the islands on top so they sit rather than sink.
- YieldEnough for four, in one glass dish. It does not keep — the meringue weeps and the sponge turns to paste by the next day.
Floating island is the English name for what French cookery calls œufs à la neige, eggs in snow: poached meringue set adrift on a thin pouring custard. The dish is old enough that eighteenth-century English cookbooks already describe islands of whipped cream or jelly floating on a sea of wine or cream, and the name survived even as the construction shifted to the custard-and-meringue version familiar here. This particular treatment, with sliced sponge cake spread with jam under the custard, has quietly turned it into a trifle wearing a meringue hat, built from one set of cheap staples: eggs, milk, sugar, stale cake, a jar of jam. The glass dish matters to the effect: the layers were meant to be seen.