Traditional Hungarian Dessert - Madártej

Had a chance to have some home-made madártej, which is a traditional Hungarian dessert. Sometimes it's also eaten as a snack. If you translate 'madártej' into Finnish it's 'linnunmaito' and into English something like 'bird's milk' but it's called 'Floating Islands' in English. This is how Ildikó made it:

Ingredients:
1 litre milk
200g sugar & vanilla sugar
6 eggs

1. Seperate the egg and first whisk the eggyolks - add the sugar and whisk them until thick.

2. Beat the egg whites until it is so thick that does not come out of the bowl.

3. Heat the milk and put in 1 spoonfull vanilla sugar. Do not let it boil, just wait for the first bubbles and then turn down the heat to medium and add spoon by spoon the whipped egg white into the heated milk for app. 30 seconds - turn them around (they are floating) take out those and put into a separate bowl. 

4. When all the "islands" - in Hungarian they are called "birds" are ready, put a bit of milk(cold) into the already whisked eggyolks, keep on whisking and add it to the heated milk and heat it a bit more - wait for the first bubbles - when it becomes a bit thicker take it off the heat. let it cool down, put it into fridge and serve it cold.

"A direct descendant of the French floating island, madártej isa deceptively simple looking dessert of fluffy meringue on a sea of vanilla custard that has become a staple of the Hungarian culinary lexicon."

The Hungarian version is made with fatty milk and slightly less sugar than the others. The name 'bird's milk' also sets it apart from its european counterparts and it is believed to hail from the latin translation of 'lac gallinaceum', or chicken's milk, which referred to a meal which was so unbelievably delicious, such as a make-believe bird's milk.

 Here's my bowl!

ps. one bowl was not enough for me!