This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Shari of Whisk: a food blog. She chose Floating Islands, which are meringues floating in crème anglaise, check out her blog for the complete recipe. This is a very different recipe than I have ever made. My first thought was that this isn’t the sort of thing that I make and maybe I would skip this week’s recipe. But the whole point of being in Tuesdays with Dorie is to try new things, so I thought I would give it a try. I wasn’t really thinking that I would like the recipe all that much.
Looking at the list of ingredients for this recipe, there is nothing unusual. Lots of eggs, some sugar, milk, and vanilla. First you make crème anglaise, which is custard. My husband loves custard! He was thrilled I was making it. It was too complex of recipe, but I definitely needed his help to add hot milk to the mixture while still whisking. He’s always a big help. The crème came together exactly as the recipe said it would. It thickened and got to the right temperature right at the ten minute mark as I hoped it would.
I had some issues separating the eggs for the meringues, which was completely annoying as I separate eggs all of the time and never have an issue. Of course the time I make something that requires pristine egg whites I have an issue with some egg yolk getting in to the mix! I ended up using the egg whites in a carton. I know that was cheating but it was the best I could do. The carton warned that the egg whites weren’t recommended for meringues, but oh well. They worked just fine. Perhaps the whites didn’t get quite as still as they could have, but they looked just about perfect to me.
You then had to poach the meringues in simmering milk. Well, this was pretty messy. My meringues were quite soft and you were supposed to turn the meringues. This was really hard. A couple of the meringues were determined to not be turned! I was able to poach most of them ok, but they didn’t look cooked or anything so I was hoping that they were ok. I assembled the dessert by floating a meringue in a pool of the custard. I also drizzled some caramel sauce over the top. It tasted better than I was expecting, and the meringues were nice. I liked the custard the best. My husband really liked the custard. I had quite a bit of custard left and I had to stop him from eating the rest of the custard straight out of the bowl!
Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 401
6 comments:
Hahah I couldn't stop eating the custard either! Your meringues are so perfect!
Your floating islands look beautiful. I had problems flipping the meringues too.
I agree with you, the custard was good, like melted ice cream! I just tasted mine. Nicely done.
Nice to have help from your husband while whisking! I'm glad you tried this recipe and it looks like they turned out wonderful. That caramel drizzled in a line is lovely. It's good to know that the egg whites in a carton work too. Thanks for baking along with me this week!
What a sweet husband to lend a hand! I had some flippage problems as well--and my milk kept scalding and making that skin on top..but I got through--and glad I did, these were so so amazing!
The custard was the best part. They look really pretty.
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