It's been a snowy winter and recently, looking at the pristine heaps surrounding our house, thoughts lazily drifted to oeufs a la neige. Knowing it's a close relative to île flottante, I dug out the cookbooks and poked around the Web to see what the differences are. There doesn't seem to a complete consensus. Both are meringue based, though sometimes raw, sometimes baked. Sometimes a singular monolith, other times individual mounds. And while oeufs a la neige always call for white meringue in pale yellow crème anglaise (yellow snow?), some floating islands float only in puddles of a flan-like caramel sauce.
I had a picture in my mind of how I'd like these to look when I serve them and cobbled together the following sequence of events. It's a three step procedure: the meringues, the crème anglaise and the praline. Most recipes call for making the praline first, breaking it into shards to sprinkle over the top. I like the Mauna Loa effect of pouring the hot praline over the meringues, flowing down like hot brown lava studded with chopped almond boulders. So make your meringues first, then the sauce. When the meringues are cool, make the praline and pour over. To assemble, place an island in a shallow soup bowl, then spoon the sauce around.
Île Flottante
8 egg whites
1/8 t. salt
1/4 t. cream of tartar
1 c. superfine sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
Beat the egg whites until frothy, then beat in the salt and cream of tartar. Continue beating until soft peaks form, the slowly add in the sugar. Beat until you've got nice stiff peaks, beating in the vanilla extract in the very end.
Oil a baking sheet. Use two serving spoons create eight puffy little mountains. Smooth them out a bit so you don't have too many sharp spikes, otherwise they will brown too much. Bake for 30 minutes in a preheated 250° oven, the mounds will show the slightest bit of brown coloring. Remove and cool on the sheet.
Crème Anglaise
1/2 c. sugar
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1 t. cornstarch
1 3/4 c. boiling milk
Beat the yolks and sugar for three minutes, until it make light yellow smooth ribbons. Beat in the cornstarch. With the beater running, dribble in the boiling milk just a bit at a time so as not to curdle the eggs. When it's all combined, return to the sauce pan you used to heat the milk, and over medium heat bring up to 170°. Not hotter or it'll curdle. Take off the heat and beat again for another two minutes to cool.
Praline
1/2 c. slivered almonds
1/2 c. sugar
2 T. water
Mix the sugar with the water and cook over medium heat (stir, stir, stir!) until you've got a nice brown caramel sauce. Stir in the nuts at the final moment, and then use a spoon to pour over the meringues. Act quickly, the caramel stiffens up rather quickly.
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