Meringue Islands in English Cream (Snowy Eggs)

The name of this dessert will leave you as enamored as its delicious flavor and texture: floating meringue in English cream and caramel . How are you staying? You may also hear it referred to as "snowy eggs." It is an original French recipe, floating islands, made with meringue and arranged in a crème anglaise base. To accompany and give them flavor, we will pour a delicious caramel sauce on top.

It is a delicious recipe, the most visible and you will be surprised how easy it is to prepare.

As indicated, the islands are meringues, so you will basically need beaten egg whites and sugar. We will aromatize them with vanilla, whose flavor will be reinforced with English cream, also vanilla.

For the cream we will use the egg yolks, so we will use both parts of the egg for each preparation of the recipe. Do not throw away anything because you will use it all for a super dessert recipe!

De Buyer Loqy Range

Thus, with this delicious recipe, we welcome the new Loqy De Buyer range, which consists of the brand's most desired pieces (the Mineral B cast iron pan, the Choc non-stick pan, the Alchimy saucepan and frying pan...) , all of them as we know them but without a handle, because they have it and they share a detachable one, to be able to better organize the kitchen and easily convert a frying pan into a paella pan, a saucepan into a saucepan... I highly encourage you to see it because it is fabulously practical, of a great quality of bodies and without a doubt of handle (That preciousness of removable handle has a perfect fit!), here you will find it .

Ingredients

For the floating meringue islands:

4 egg whites (with a pinch of salt)
100g powdered sugar
1/2 liter of whole milk
1 vanilla pod

For the English cream:

1/2 liter of whole milk
1 vanilla pod
4 egg yolks
100g powdered sugar

For the caramel sauce:

150g powdered sugar
150 ml of liquid kitchen cream

Preparation

Prepare the egg whites:

1. Separate the whites from the yolks. Reserve the yolks in a bowl for later.
2. In a bowl, combine the whites and salt, and lightly beat, just to "break" the whites, and start beating with a wire whisk, mounting them to give them some air (they don't have to be very firm).
3. When they start to rise, add 1/3 of the sugar (about 30-35g of sugar), and continue to beat vigorously (if you do it with KitchenAid, you can use the balloon attachment on speed 8).
4. Go incorporating the rest of the sugar, and keep beating until you have firm whites.

Poach the meringues:

1. Put a saucepan or a sauté on the fire (we used the Loqy sauté to give it a start), add the milk and the vanilla extract and leave to heat over low heat.
2. We are going to form the islands of meringue: with a spoon or a ladle, take a part of the meringue that you have prepared, which, when firm, will separate without a problem, and with the help of another spoon, pour that tablespoon of meringue into the milk. Note: It may be easier to give the meringues a rounder shape if you use a ladle, lightly oiled to loosen it easily.
3. Go forming islands of meringue in the milk until you finish all the whites previously assembled.
4. Leave the meringue to poach for 3 to 5 minutes in the boiling milk (it will depend on the size of the islands).
5. After that time, remove the meringue islands with a slotted spoon, let the milk drain and reserve the poached meringues on a plate lined with kitchen paper or a cotton cloth.
6. Once the meringues have been removed, reserve the vanilla milk.

Prepare the crème anglaise

1. Pass the vanilla milk that you have previously used through a strainer, to remove any possible meringue in it, and put it in an Alchimy Loqy saucepan . You need about 500 ml of milk - if you don't have enough, add whole milk until you reach that amount (if you have added a lot of milk, you can also add half a teaspoon more of vanilla extract, to recover the vanilla flavor of the milk).
2. Put the saucepan on the fire, and heat without reaching a boil.
3. Meanwhile, put the yolks that you had reserved in a bowl, add the sugar and mix until integrated and whiten.
4. Pour a few tablespoons of the hot milk into the bowl, so that it reaches some temperature without the yolks curdling (don't stop mixing), and then gradually pour the blanched yolks into the saucepan with the milk. Do not stop stirring with some rods or spatula. You must reach 84°C (no more, do not let it boil at any time). The process will be fast, do not stop stirring: it reaches that temperature, stops the fire, stirs a little more and reserves.

Preparation of the caramel sauce:

1. Put the Alchimy stainless steel pan on the heat, and distribute sugar all over the bottom of the pan. You will see that there comes a time when it begins to melt, you can gradually add the rest of the sugar, in the form of "rain". You can slightly turn the pan, holding it by the handle, but above all do not insert any utensil or it will crystallize.
3. When the sugar turns blond, pour in the hot cream to stop the cooking, and let it cook for 3 minutes over low heat, beating slightly.
4. Reserve the caramel at room temperature (it should lose heat before pouring over the meringue).

Preparation of the dish:

1. In a pretty bowl, pour a ladleful of crème anglaise.
2. Add a meringue ball in the center, and pour caramel sauce on top.
3. To enjoy!

Grades

• It is very interesting to use the Alchimy De Buyer stainless steel saucepan and frying pan in these preparations, because we must control the temperature well: keep the heat low, be able to raise it to add heat when we are interested and, above all, when it reaches a certain temperature, stop the fire and that the frying pan and saucepan react quickly to this change in temperature to stop the cooking and that the temperature of the milk or caramel does not rise any further in each case. A good frying pan, with the density of its diffuser bottom, as is the case with Alchimy, helps us 100% to that control.
• English sauce is similar to pastry cream, but if you pay attention, it does not include cornstarch in its ingredients and it is very liquid. Don't expect it to thicken like pastry cream does. The idea is to have a vanilla liquid base, to be enjoyed in each spoonful along with the meringue.