Recipe For Cooking Floating Island Pudding

The whites of five eggs. 1/2 cup of prune, fig, date or other purée, or crushed almonds and other nuts. 1/2 cup of sugar. 1/4 teaspoonful of cream-of-tarter. Boiled custard.

Beat the eggs until foamy; add the cream-of-tartar and beat until dry, adding meanwhile the fruit or nuts. The fruit should have been fine-chopped and cooked to a smooth purée with a little water. Turn the mixture into a large, handsome, well-buttered mould and cook in a steamer without boiling the water about twenty minutes. The mixture often rises enormously and the mould needs be very large. When cold unmould in a deep dish and surround with a cold boiled custard. In cooling, the meringue contracts, and is unmoulded easily. The texture is very delicate, and the flavor, produced by steaming, is peculiar, but most agreeable.