I apologize for my two week long absence. Things have been a tad bit crazy, but believe me I have not gone these two weeks without baking. The week after I returned from visiting my family in Indiana, Roydon came home early from work and look absolutely horrible with a high fever, body aches, and fatigue. He went straight to bed for a solid three days to recover and I happily played nurse for him. This included making another batch of English Muffins (I’m telling you, they are so fun and yummy!) as well as attempting to make French Onion Soup. I have always loved French Onion Soup with its saltiness and a healthy coating of Guyere cheese on top. What better way to help my patient recover? I found the recipe in a cookbook that I received from my parents during my Bridal Shower called The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook. These have some of the scientifically best recipes ever! Including a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that turns out as good as bakery quality every single time! I also made Chicken Noodle Soup and Roydon’s favorite Red Curry Coconut Chicken Soup. It was a week of soups.
I think I enjoyed having Roydon home from work a little too much, especially considering how miserable he was. However, isn’t this what every wife lives for? I absolutely loved providing care and nourishment to my husband while he recovered.
A week later, Roydon was in Michigan for his job and I was busy with my various duties at the school where I work. Which left me very little energy to attempt the Floating Islands. However, this week I am on Spring Break which means I have no excuse to prolong the procrastination any longer.
They really look so delicate. The actual meringue itself, cooked right through, evenly…It really is a difficult technical bake. I think they’ll have trouble with that meringue.” Mary Berry, Season 2 Episode 3
Baking to me is a social event. It should be done with others. If you have kids, it’s a lesson in science, math, and a whole ton of patience. With that in mind, I brought Roydon in the kitchen to actively assist me in this bizarre dessert.
More egg whites. Seriously? Roydon and I watched this episode of The Great British Baking Show, keeping an eye on how the bakers poached their meringues. Roydon didn’t speak the entire time, and with a quick glance over to him I saw his eyes grow wider and wider in disbelief as to what we will be shortly attempting. I tried to assure him that it’ll be a piece of cake, but I wasn’t too sure about it myself.
We got to work prepping all of our materials. Roydon used a food processor to grind up our normal size grains of sugar into more fine grains and I worked on separated the six eggs.
Once that was all finished, I poured the egg whites into the bowl of my KitchenAid Mixer and got to work whipping them up. Once stiff peaks were achieved, we added a tablespoon of sugar at a time. Each time restoring the egg whites to its stiff peaks.
In this episode, we had noticed that a method the bakers used to check if their meringues were stiff enough was by slowly turning the bowl upside down. If they were stiff enough, they would remain in the bowl. If they weren’t…Well, let’s just say, I really hoped they were.
With the meringues finished, we combined the whole milk and the heavy whipping cream (or as they call it “double cream”) in a deep sided frying pan on a very low heat until it was simmering.
Before placing in the pan to be poached, the meringues needed to be shaped by using two tablespoons. This was no easy task, the meringues kept sticking to the spoon doing the shaping and would reattach itself to the meringue blob I was trying to shape. When I was somewhat satisfied with the shape, I slowly plopped each of them in the pan and covered it with a lid.
The recipe said that if the milk ends up boiling, the meringues would puff up instantly only to later deflate. So, you had to be careful not to allow the milk to boil. Easier said than done. The stove top was on the lowest heat possible without turning it off and the milk still ended up boiling slightly. There was a moment of panic on my part when I took the lid off and found a giant mass of meringues plotting to take over the world. With a spoon, one by one I placed the blobs of poached meringues on a cooling rack. Once separated from each other, the blobs seemed to realize that world domination was impossible, and so they deflated slightly.
The next step was to create the Crème Anglaise. We placed the egg yolks in the mixer combined with some sugar and whisked it up until it was fluffy and pale. Before combing the whipped yolks with the poaching milk, we poured the milk through a strainer to remove any chunky bits of meringue. Once combined, the crème was placed back on the stove at a low heat until it was a bit thicker.
Now for the spun sugar. Spun sugar seems a lot more daunting then it actually turned out to be. Basically, you pour some sugar in a stainless steel pot and cook on the stovetop at a medium heat. Here’s the challenge: do not stir the sugar. This was surprising difficult for me. Just let the sugar do its thing.
Once the sugar had completely melted and looked a beautiful dark golden brown. We took it off the heat and allowed it to cool slightly. Then, Roydon used a fork to dip it in the sugar and flick it back and forth over a greased rolling pin. The thing we found was how quickly the sugar cooled. Before long, the remainder of the sugar was stuck in the pan. Luckily, we had enough to decorate our Floating Islands.
The spun sugar really did wonders to make the entire thing look so attractive. Before diving in to eat it, however, we had to make sure all of the strands of sugar was wiped off the counter and swept off the floor. It was definitely a messy recipe.
Finally, we were able to try the Floating Islands. I do have to say that I’m not generally a fan of meringue. I made Roydon a Pavlova for his Birthday and couldn’t get over the texture of it. However, in terms of Floating Islands, the combination of the crème anglaise, the egg taste of the meringue, and the caramel crunch of the spun sugar was absolutely a surprise. I especially loved the crème anglaise. I could have poured the entire pan in a mug and just drank the entire thing.
As much as we enjoyed the final product, Roydon and I both decided it was a lot of work for the outcome and so will probably never make it again. Except, I definitely can see myself making some more spun sugar to decorate cakes in the future…
Floating Islands with Spun Sugar
Recipe courtesy of The Great British Baking Show
Ingredients
For the crème anglaise
300ml/10 ½ fl oz whole milk
300ml/10 ½ fl oz double cream
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
6 free-range eggs, yolks only
100g/3 ½ oz caster sugar
For the Meringues
6 free-range eggs, whites only
150g/5 ½ oz caster sugar
For the spun sugar
100g/3 ½ oz caster sugar
Directions
Next Challenge: English Custard Tarts
Piece of Cake 