Back in the mists of time, lo these many months ago, for the Movie Matinee, we watched The Desk Set with Katherine Hepburn and some guy who recognized he was only barely worthy of her awesomeness. But we’ve already talked about that. Featured in The Desk Set is a dessert called “Floating Island,” and the other Bitches challenged me to make it.
As it so happens, I have a friend (Abigail, who has featured here before) who loves playing with mid-century cooking and she was intrigued by this idea. So she hunted down a recipe in her facsimile of Better Homes and Gardens 1953 cookbook, and we spent a pleasant afternoon playing with eggs.
Floating Island is a variation on the French œufs à la neige (“eggs in snow”) that was recently featured as a technical challenge on the Great American Baking Show. It was first recorded in the 18th century in a French cookbook called Le Cuisinier Francois, and you can see it right here!
In the US, Floating Island became popular from the turn of the 20th century to the MidCentury Modern era, because eggs and milk were cheap ingredients that were easy to get.
Floating Island is little poached meringues in a sea of custard. We tried very hard to find one that we could ALSO set on fire (it’s been that kind of a year) but it doesn’t look like Floating Island En Flambe was a THING.
I’m disappointed, Mid-Century. You had your shot and you BLEW IT.
(Yes, yes, I could have carefully put rum on top of the custard and then set it on fire but that would not have been historically accurate. That would have been me just burning things with no sources. And that is not what we are here for.)
(Someday.)
So the first thing you do is make meringue with a single egg white and a bit of sugar. You can, I suppose, do this by hand, but like… why? Hand whipped egg whites are not morally superior.
Then you heat milk in a deep pan to a simmer, and dollop the meringue into the pan to poach by the tablespoon. This makes the islands.
Then you take the milk and the yolk from the previous egg (and a couple more eggs) plus sugar and vanilla and make a custard (slowly, in a double boiler stirring FOREVER).
Then the custard goes into the serving dish, and the islands are floated on top, and then it gets chilled for about an hour.
THEN YOU INELEGANTLY SHOVE IT YOUR FACE BECAUSE IT’S DELICIOUS. (Abigail, asking around her mouth full of island: “…you took a picture of it before we ate it, right?”)
It’s REALLY good. Super rich, and I may have been a tad heavy with the vanilla in the custard, but honestly, as a fancy dessert for a dinner party, it works!
It’s not that complicated, and needs to be done well before hand so it can chill while you’re roasting your crown roast or whatever. It’s also a thrifty version, in that the yolk and whites get used separately, and you poach the islands in the same milk you make the custard out of (Abigail said she found other recipes that are like, “poach your meringues! Toss the milk! Get more milk!” which… no. That’s silly).
So…. yes, fine. Not every Mid-Century food is ridiculous. But this one has it’s roots in the courts of France, so it’s not like it’s REALLY Mid-Century, right?
Right.
When we were in Paris we ate these a couple times, though they were always called Ile Flottante. So delicious!
I am not a fan of eggs, but that movie is in my top 5. So many woman brains. So much woman friendship. SO MANY BOOKS.
The only passing grade I received on a performance for a mandatory performing arts credit (AKA the semester of making life hell for introverts) was my reenactment of Queen Kat’s recitation of “Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight,” complete with bosom clutching, leaping, and rolling R’s.
It’s fashionable to make fun of mid-century cooking, to throw our hands up in horror at all the canned soups and pre-packaged ingredients, but, for so many women, things like Jello and OXO cubes were life-savers. And, for many of us, these are the recipes we return to when we want comfort food – green bean casserole, Swedish meatballs, etc. My son used to complain about my very quick and cheap imitation beef stroganoff until he was informed that, when he was ready to pay for and prepare the meal, he could shut up and eat.
Floating Islands are cheap and easy and delicious. I remember stomping off to the kitchen about thirty years ago to whip up a huge batch because I was informed, at the last minute, that all of my in-laws would be joining us for Easter dinner that year.
I suppose you could torch the meringues before placing them on the custard. Not quite as satisfying as setting stuff on fire, but still fun. I also found exploding custard on You Tube. They all say DON’T TRY THIS, so, of course, I’d dying to now. Any excuse to get out my blow torch. I use a welder’s torch; none of those wussy kitchen torches for me.
I don’t generally disdain mid-century cooking, but… this looks so bland, it should be served in a plastic Eames chair. I wonder if you couldn’t do funky variations of either or both the meringue and custard, like a chocolate meringue in a cinnamon- or other-flavoured custard. Sadly it will not be for me to find out, because with my anaphylactic egg white allergy, this is dessert item #6,271 on the menu of cayenne’s Banquet of Death. *sigh*
And now I have an urge to watch Desk Set again, too!
These are not bland at all! They’re absolutely delicious. If unflavoured custard is not your thing, there are tons of things you can flavour it with. Earl Grey tea is a great idea, but honestly, just plain vanilla works perfectly.
There’s also a version where you make caramel and pour it over the meringue just as it turns golden. The caramel sets on the meringue and makes a hard crust. It adds texture and makes the whole thing even more decadent.
@RedHeadedGirl: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the page from the cookbook you’ve included in your article suggests cooking your meringue by running a red-hot fireplace spade over it. That doesn’t quite amount to setting everything on fire, but it’s still metal enough 😉
Sounds lovely, I love custards.
I have my grandmother’s 1930 Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (plus my mom’s 1968 and my own 1996 editions). The 1930 Floating Islands recipe starts with a creamy boiled custard, floats unpoached meringues on top, sprinkles a little coconut on the meringues, then bakes in a slow oven and cools. It then calls for a garnish of “cubes of tart jelly.”
@redheadedgirl, if you ever need a Thirties recipe, give me a holler. Grammie also tucked newspaper recipe clippings and Skelgas Cooking Bulletins into her cookbook. It’s a trove of odd and delicious.
Mmm. Custard. Meringue. It’s snowing and I have all those ingredients in the house…
And “Desk Set” might be one of the best librarian movies ever. Yes, even over “Party Girl” with Parker Posey. But then Katherine Hepburn is one of my sheroes.
“Hand whipped egg whites are not morally superior.”
I love you so, so much for this alone, never mind all the rest.
@Heather:
cooking your meringue by running a red-hot fireplace spade over it. That doesn’t quite amount to setting everything on fire, but it’s still metal enough
This sounds like what Mrs Beeton in 1861 called a “salamander”. Some modern sources suggest that if you haven’t got an overhead broiler, a blowtorch will work just fine. Now that’s metal.
Dang, Nancy, you beat me to the punch. I laughed out loud when I read that line. Not morally superior, indeed.
And, frankly, I’m all for effort saving short cuts everywhere I can find them, most especially in the kitchen. I do my best to keep my cooking healthy, fresh and as near ‘from scratch’ as I can- but I have or am acquiring all the tools. (Kitchenaid stand mixer, you will be mine! Someday…) In the meantime, my trusty handheld mixer and I continue to make great things. Or tasty things. Or sometimes not so tasty things. It’s a work night progress.
In Hungary we have a very similar dessert but a bit more complicated. And I never new it came from France until the internet. We call it bird’s milk though 🙂
I found a recipe of it in English: http://zsuzsaisinthekitchen.blogspot.hu/2011/11/hungarian-floating-islands-madartej.html
I love custard and I love meringue. This looks like something I would make. Might go with a vanilla-cinnamon custard and then take my brulee torch to the meringue, because to me the only thing better than meringue is burnt meringue (see: black-crusted toasted marshmallows).
Note to self: get a slotted spoon of the Use for Poached Eggs variety.
For the meringue lovers: Floating Islands has some similarities to Salzburger Nockerl, which omits the custard and folds the egg yolks into the whipped whites. It’s delicious with shaved dark chocolate over the top!
Never heard of it before now, but it definitely sounds amazing. If I ever get the motivation to cook, I will probably try this out. Most likely I won’t, though.
I beat eggs by hand once. The recipe lied and said it was quick. Never ever again, carbon footprint be damned.
Still, what do you do with the meringues while you’re making the custard if you reuse the milk?
@ MsCellany: if you’re serving the dessert warm, you can put the meringues in a pan & keep them warm in the oven at 200F. If you’re serving cold, just put them in the fridge till serving time.
I just picked up a cookbook today & it has 2 recipes for iles flottante. One is drizzled with salted caramel sauce & sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts, the other has orange blossom water-flavoured custard & toasted pistachios. (The cookbook is Meringue, by Linda K Jackson & Jennifer Evans Gardner. I highly recommend it.)
I know the recipe! There’s a cookbook in Itlay that is considered the Bible of Italian food. It was written by Pellegrino Artusi and published in 1891, and it’s still in use. The dessert is called Uova di neve (snow eggs, which does give the idea!)
I also have a copy of the cookbook and consult it regularly. Funny thing is that I never considered it historical cooking, I’d say traditional cooking (but then, my husband says that Italians are extremely dogmatic when food is concerned!)
Julia Child has a recipe for this in Mastering the Art of French Cooking which looks delicious. Her Ike Flottante is flavored with crushed caramelized almond praline and is a single egg white soufflé unfolded after it has cooked and cooled, served on a pool of either crime anglaise (custard sauce) or strawberry or raspberry sauce. According to Child, “Those little mounds of egg whites floating on custard which are usually called floating island in English are the French dessert leafs a la beige.”
beautiful china dish
The custard sauce, creme angles if you want to sound fancy, is also delicious over fruit, particularly bananas. Or maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic, because bananas in custard sauce was a favorite dessert of my childhood.
Ya gots eggs, ya gots milk, ya gots sugar, ergo you gots custard/flan/galaktoboureko/natillos/etc. Custard is universal.
It looks to be the next step that custard type desserts would get fancied up with soft meringues. Yum, Yum.
I wonder if the Chinese have a custard type dessert?
This looks great. And bonus – it’s naturally gluten free
This looks delicious. While I love Desk Set, I first learned about floating island from Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books, set in small-town Minnesota in the early 20th century.
@Joy – yes the Chinese have an amazing dish served at the best dim sum restaurants that is a custard made from silky tofu, immersed in warm, honey ginger water. It’s not easy to find but truly delicious! They probably have others too but this is the one I’ve had. I love dim sum.
My mother was a home ec teacher in the mid-50s. I remember this dessert from fancy parties she would host in the 70s, except I recall the custard was more like a creme anglais-lemon curd hybrid. I can’t find a recipe though. My books from her only mention a strawberry variation.
And one of my jobs in the kitchen as a kid was beating egg whites until stiff, for meringues, angle-food cake, soufflé, etc.. Used an old-fashioned egg-beater. It takes a long time to beat a dozen egg whites with an egg-beater!
Wow! I love the movie so I need to make it. Like really soon. And there is so much helpfull and funny stuff in the comments! Thanks, guys!