Île Flottante au Chocolat/Floating Island with Chocolate

Île flottante is a delightful French dessert which is also known as Floating island. Egg whites when beaten as meringue dropped into a créme angalaise aka a vanilla custard sauce. When meringue cooked dropped into to this sauce starts floating and ressembles as much as like floating islands. This desserts is our family favourite and since ever i started making myself at home, my family asks me quite often to make this dessert. And i have been preparing this dessert at home quite from a long as this dessert asks for easy ingredients, but still i have few more versions to try. My lil one was asking for a chocolate loaded floating islands since a long and finally i prepared some few days back for a small get together we had at home. Floating island is made of egg whites and which is served along with a silky milky custard sauce. Some makes their custard sauce thicker and serve on the top of the dumpling but most of the recipe calls for almost liquid, thin custard sauce to make the dumplings float on the top of the sauce.

Beaten egg whites are poured in a mould to get baked in oven before served along with custard sauce, though traditionally egg whites are shaped with spoons and allowed to cook gently in boiling water. I have seen this method of cooking egg whites in a TV show and i follow the same cooking process whenever i prepare this ultimate dessert. Usually served with vanilla custard this dessert can be served both at room temperature or cold. Today's post for this whole month of blogging marathon goes for an another incredible version of floating islands as i prepared the custard sauce with chocolate. Chocolate custard sauce is almost the same as the vanilla custard which is quite easy to make too. You might have noticed that am running this month's blogging marathon with Journey through the cuisines as theme and we marathoners are posting recipe's name starts with alphabets. Today is our 9th day of blogging marathon and today's alphabet is 'I', hence this delicious dessert.

For Crème anglaise (Chocolate vanilla custard):
3cups Full fat milk
2tbsp Unsweetened Cocao powder
1/2tsp Vanilla extract
4nos Egg yolks
1/2cup Sugar

For Meringue:
4nos Egg whites
1pinch Salt

Bring boil the milk in simmer in a pan, meanwhile beat the egg yolks,cocao powder and sugar until they turns creamy pale mixture.

Gradually add the boiled milk, vanilla extract, mix continously (else the yolks will get cooked).

Now transfer this mixture to the pan and cook in simmer until they turns creamy and slightly thick..cover it and keep aside..

Beat the egg whites with salt until they turn foamy, beat until soft peek forms.

Bring boil two cups of water in a heavy bottomed large pan, scoop the egg whites and drop gently to the boiling water, cook on both sides until the egg whites turns slightly hard.

Drop gently the cooked egg whites in already prepared chocolate custard sauce, arrange them in fridge atleast for two hours.

While serving garnish the floating islands with chopped nuts and chocolate shaves.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 63
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