Iles Flotantes - Floating Island

It's International Egg day and which better day to try out this dreamy Classic French dessert called Floating Island. Yup! You read that right! Isn't the name of the dessert in itself so fascinating. It is basically a cloudy-pillowy meringue balls/oval shaped baby cakes that are floating on a rich creamy thick custard.

I have been wanting to try this since a long time now. Though I wanted to try and experiment with different flavors other than vanilla, I stuck to the classic one this time as I wanted to know what the real flavors felt like. The meringue balls are usually made using the help of two Spoons and rolling a spoon full of meringue between two tablespoons till you get them ival shaped. But since the lazy girl in me did not want to go through the struggle, I literally grabbed an ice cream scooper and voila! My little island were scooped and dropped into the hot milk in no time. The meringue requires around 9-10 minutes of cook time, in between which you have to flip them to cook completely. The meringue is cooked well when you close the lid and beware of boiling the milk, you don't want a hot mess in here!

The recipe calls for cornstarch that has to be added to the whisked meringue, but I completely forgot to add it. But there was no issues in holding its shapes Coming to the flavor, practically speaking we all have vanilla essence at our homes, but I'd rather go for the vanilla pod next time I try the dessert. But guys I was literally amazed by the technique of poaching the meringue in the hot milk. Aaaahh! The inventions people come up with, truly genius! The rich creme anglaise and the meringue is a match made in heaven. It's unreal how a few ingredients like literally 4 ingredients and you can make an easy and delicious dessert in a jiffy.

Creme anglaise is basically egg yolks that are cooked along with hot milk and vanilla briefly without boiling, or else you might end up with a creme anglaise that is grainy.

Just a few points to be kept in mind and your classic French dinner dessert called Iles Flotantes with sugar basket is ready to serve! 😍

Let's get started!

Ingredients :

2 cups Full Fat milk (plus extra to add on later)
1 tsp Vanilla extract or 1/2 vanilla bean paste
4 large eggs, yolks and whites separated
1/3 cup sugar (for meringue)
1/4 cup sugar (for creme anglaise)
1 tsp cornstarch /corn flour (optional)

Instructions:

Pour the milk into a wide skillet (you will be poaching your meringues here) and pour in your vanilla extract. Allow to heat on low flame whilst we prepare the meringue.
Whip the egg whites using a electric hand beater or a stand mixer on a high speed while gradually adding your sugar and continue to whip until the egg whites have stiff peaks when the beaters are lifted or spoon the meringue and turn the spoon and if the meringue stays intact without falling, the meringues are ready for poaching. Fold in the cornstarch at this stage.
Once the milk has heated to a point where there are no bubbles of boiling visible, using two large Spoons shaped the meringues to oval shape (I used uce cream scoop) and drop them into the hot milk carefully leaving space between each meringue ball.
Poach the meringues for 5 minutes uncovered, then flip and cook covered for around 4 minutes.
Using a slotted spoon, scoop the cooked meringues and set aside to cool on a tray.
Once cooked, allow to chill.
Into a clean saucepan, strain the milk that was used to cook the meringues and add extra milk if required (requires 2 cups/500 ml milk). Bring the milk to a Sim.
Whilst at that, whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl with sugar. Slowly pour the hot milk into the yolk mixture while whisking.
Transfer the custard mix to the saucepan again and using a wooden spoon mix well until the mix thickens lightly and coats the back of your wooden spoon (you can check this by wiping the back of your spoon with a finger and if it separates, then it is cooked and you may switch off the flame).
Slowly strain the custard into a clean bowl and cover with a cling wrap directly covering the surface of the custard. Allow the custard to come to a room temperature and chill well before serving.
Finally, make caramel to garnish. (by bringing sugar to a boil and stiring occasionally until melted)
To serve, pour ladle fulls of the prepared and chilled creme anglaise into a flat serving dessert bowl and gently place the cooked and cooled meringue. Finally, drizzle the prepared caramelized sugar over the meringue, serve immediately and enjoy! 😍

Do try this recipe and don't forget to share your experience/feedback with me here in the comments or feel free to send me a mail. Also, do tag me at #taystedit if you try out my recipes on Facebook, Instagram etc so that I can see when you make it. ♡♡♡♡