What the hell is a floating island?
Well, I thought the same thing, too... when I saw that Shari of Whisk: a food blog had picked this recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie. And then I noticed it was in the "Spoon Desserts" section of the cookbook and I grumbled under my breath... and then I saw the picture and I thought... YUCK! That thing looks disgusting. I immediately planned skipping out on the recipe... and then I remembered that the whole point of this baking group is to expand my horizons. Shari is merely trying to culture me in the world of desserts... so, here I am... making floating islands.
I've been trying to stay ahead of the curve so that I can set my TWD's up for automatic posting on Tuesday mornings, but this recipe, I ended up having to wait till last night to complete.
So, let's discuss the Floating Island , shall we? I'm going to break it down into basics for you. You've basically got a pool of melted ice cream... a cold soup, if you will. And floating around in this melted ice cream pool is a meringue puff/boat/island/blob.
The thing is... you have to actually make this melted pool of ice cream... (don't think I wasn't tempted by the half a carton of ice cream that is still in my freezer, left over from my birthday). But, I stayed honest and made the pool, which is technically called a Creme Anglaise. And I threw in some Bailey's Irish Cream to liven the pool up a bit. All pool parties are more fun with booze.
Apparently, this is what little french children think is a "fun dessert." Someone please introduce them to a Reese Peanut Butter Cup. These poor, poor children. I mean, granted, I think mine turned out wrong... I have a feeling that they weren't supposed to taste like an egg white omelette swimming in a pool of melted ice cream. Mine SUCKED. Even with the Baileys. Baileys alone cannot a party make.
I imagine that this was supposed to turn out more like meringue cookie texture, instead of a soggy, eggy mess. (Yes, I had good intentions and even used red food coloring for mine!) But, it's cool and now I've learned something... I've learned to stick with pastries and chocolate when I go to france.
So, since I'm embarrassed with just how shitty mine floating islands turned out... instead of posting the pic at the top... I'm posting it down here at the bottom. Something went terribly, terribly wrong...
Next week teaser: CHOCOLATE CAKE. Oh YES.
