This week’s TWD recipe was chosen by Shari of Whisk, A Food Blog and is Floating Islands. This is a recipe that I have often looked at books but have never been inspired to make. The recipe is a French one and is effectively poached meringues sitting in a pool of custard. I am not sure what it is about this recipe that I have never wanted to make it, as I love custard and I also love meringues. Anyway, this week was my opportunity to try something I would not have made, but for TWD.
I made these on Friday – it was a public holiday here and a very hot day. I had no trouble with the custard. I actually made it using calci trim milk which is a reduced fat, high calcium milk, and it worked fine. I then made the meringues and poached them. I am not sure what I did wrong here. Maybe my milk was too hot? Because a couple of my meringues did more than lightly poach – they were like poached eggs! Maybe I poached them for too long.
The second thing that went wrong was that after putting my meringues on a lined tray, I put them in the fridge where they sat precariously on the top shelf balancing on relish and other bottles. My husband was clearing up from dinner, went to put something in the fridge and the tray of meringues slid out and landed on the floor. Thankfully I had just made this dessert for us and didn’t have guests waiting or anything like that!! I quickly picked up the two salvageable ones (after a bit of yelling at my husband about why did he have to open the fridge door when surely he must have known that I had meringues balancing on a relish jar lid!!) and popped them into the bowl of custard, made the toffee and drizzled it on the top.
My first instinct was right – I ended up eating all the custard, but neither of us ate the meringue. I just didn’t get it. Give me a lovely crisp oven baked meringue and a separate bowl of custard any day of the week. On a good note, it was good to try something different and I had never done the toffee drizzle thing before – I really liked that part of the pudding.
See if the other TWDers enjoyed this more than me here.
17 comments:
They have never appealed to me either! I agree meringues need the chewiness and lightness from oven baking and poaching is just all wrong!
Cheese Lover
what an interesting recipe although i don't like meringue nor custard. poor huband ! :) propably I would have done the same though
I do like your toffee drizzle - there was no way that I was going to invest the extra time to do it, particularly as the rest was so disappointing. It looks like you did a great job - maybe it was a good thing that your husband tipped the rest of the meringues over, because then there was no dilemma about what to do with them.
They look way cool, but yeah I don't understand why you would poach meringue and not bake it. The best thing about meringues is the crispness and crunch that melts in your mouth - I'm one of those people that hates the soft fluffy bit inside pavs but loves the crisp outside. I image a poached meringue is like the inside of a soft pav? A mouthful of eggy fluff? not so appealing.
The custard was the best part, in my opinion. But yours look awesome - just like in the book!
I agree. I didn't like the texture of the poached meringues. Your floating island looks great.
I haven't made this recipe Tammy,but I have certainly yelled at my husband on occasion.The meringues obviously look better than they tasted.
I was thinking longingly of a nice browned meringue, too! Your dessert looks great, and nobody's the wiser about the floor time. Too bad husbands don't come equipped with ESP or at least laser vision, right?
Nancy
Very well done Tammy! They look wonderful!
I'm sorry to read they didn't do much for you though...
I didn't like the meringues either. Your caramel looks great, though!
Regardless of what went wrong, it looks wonderful.
meringues are pretty tough to get right in warm weather. They look great with all that drizzle on top
I'm with you on soft vs. crispy meringues!
Yeah, I like the oven baked meringues better! But yours look great!
Your dessert came out great! I loved the custard too.. I just made mine yesterday and Dorie was right about it being better the next day.. I just love it!
Naw! We didn't care for it either. But try different things. They look very pretty.
The 5-second rule works for me! Glad you gave it a go!
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