Floating Islands: A Labor of Love

In an effort to, um, encourage the older two children in their bathroom-cleaning endeavors this summer, I decided on a combination threat/bribe. 

The threat is that if they don't do their bathroom chore, they don't get Sunday dessert. 

The bribe is that whoever is on toilet-cleaning duty (they trade off every week) gets to choose what the Sunday dessert is.

This is how I found myself making Floating Islands last weekend.

There is, of course, a backstory to this, because Floating Islands is not a dessert your average 11-year-old would think of on his own. Or even your average 21st-century person, of any age. It is a very old-fashioned dessert. Which is why A. knew about it.

See, when A. was growing up, Floating Islands was a kind of a running joke in his house. The rich older relatives of more-affluent times in his father's family were served Floating Islands by their servants. And so, when A. was a kid, the joke was that the only proper dessert was Floating Islands.

The MiL actually made it a few times, so A. has had it. And he, in turn, has told that story and the joke to our children.

So when Cubby was presented with the opportunity to choose any dessert at all, he chose something he knew I would never otherwise make: Floating Islands.

I, of course, have never made this, nor eaten it. And it's not in any of my cookbooks. So I looked up recipes online, and decided to play it safe with a Julia Child recipe for it, via this blog.

It's a very detailed recipe, which I appreciated, because this recipe is a complete pain to actually make. The prep time for it is two hours.

Yeah.

I split it up over two days. So on Saturday, I made the creme anglais, which is a very thin vanilla-flavored custard. That's what the "islands" float in.

The "islands" are meringues. In this recipe, the meringue is baked, all in one big pan. I've never made meringue before. It was kind of fun how it puffed up in the oven.

Dramatic.

Somewhat disappointingly, it deflates as it cools, though.

Definitely not as dramatic.

The meringue, incidentally, tasted just like a giant marshmallow.

Then there's a caramel sauce to make at the end. The final dish is a pool of the custard with a piece of the meringue in it, and the whole drizzled with the caramel sauce.

Like so.

The whole thing was kind of annoying to do, because every step requires quite a bit of slow cooking and attention. And that does not jive with my life. The kids were really excited that I was making this famous dessert, and spent most of the time I was making it in the kitchen with me. So right behind me while I was carefully stirring my creme anglais so the eggs didn't scramble, or watching the caramel sauce to make sure the sugar didn't burn, I had this:

Just like Julia Child's kitchen, right? Oh wait. SHE HAD NO CHILDREN.

Everyone was SO excited to try this:

Including this curly girl.

And in the end? Eh. 

As I was making it, I noted the granulated sugar I was dumping in quantity into every part, and thought, "This is going to be way too sweet." And, indeed, it was definitely too sweet. It was also very one-dimensional in flavor with the vanilla in everything. 

And really, really sweet.

The MiL found a different recipe for me to try, with less sugar, should I ever make this again, but I can't say I'm that motivated. 

It was fun to try, and definitely more an Event rather than just a dessert, but I would much rather have some chocolate pudding.