Cooking Up History: German Cooking - Swimming Island (1910)
Schwimmende Insel Recipe
Between 1844 and 1957, over 200 German-language newspapers were published in Wisconsin. One of them was Der Sonntagsbote, which, among news of and for Milwaukee’s German immigrant community, printed recipes for its readership. (Learn more about the history of the German-language press here: Shaping identity - The History of German-language Newspapers in Wisconsin).
The Sunday paper oftentimes published meal suggestions for an entire week and the corresponding recipes. On December 4, 1910, it suggested the following menu for a Sunday dinner:
- Porcini mushroom soup
- Stuffed veal breast with potatoes and celery salad
- Swimming Island
Ingredients
We were intrigued by the sound of the swimming island dessert and the recipe only called for basic ingredients we did not have to make a special trip to the store for.
According to the recipe, a swimming island is a hard-boiled egg, which is rolled in sugar and cinnamon, dipped in pancake batter, deep-fried, rolled in sugar and cinnamon, dipped in pancake batter, deep-fried, rolled in sugar and cinnamon, dipped in pancake batter … you get the idea. To finish it off, you pour hot sweetened wine over the island. Prost!
The recipe does not go into much detail about anything. No measurements, not even a list of ingredients is given, but research rabbit holes and improvisation are half the fun of Cooking up History.
The pancake batter:
A traditional German pancake batter consists of eggs, flour, milk or water, and a pinch of salt – no leavening agent needed. German pancakes are a lot less fluffy than their American counterparts. To be honest, however, this recipe could possibly benefit from a little bit of Americanization through baking powder to make the batter a little airier and the island a little less dense.
The egg is fried in oil
The hot sweetened wine:
Mulled wine or hot sweetened and spiced wine is a traditional drink around Christmas in Germany (and this recipe was suggested in December). Most commonly, red wine is used and that is what we decided to use as well. Since the typical mulling spices (cinnamon sticks, cloves, star aniseed, orange) were not mentioned in the recipe but there was already cinnamon in the island, we went
the easy route and simply heated up some red wine, added a little sugar, and doused the island. If you want to give it a little bit more, try adding some berries (frozen will do) and take full advantage of your spice cabinet.
The finished dessert is a dense donut with a hard-boiled egg center, which is a little bit strange at first, but we quickly got over it. There is room for improvement with an airier batter, but this has been one of our favorite recipes so far.
Finished Swimming Island
The recipe in 2020:
- 1 hard-boiled egg
- 1 egg (uncooked)
- 1/3 c sugar (plus 1 Tbsp for the wine)
- 2 Tbsp cinnamon
- 2 Tbsp milk
- 6 Tbsp flour
- 1 c red wine
- Oil for deep frying
Peel the hard-boiled egg and toss in a bowl with sugar and cinnamon. Make a “not-too-thin” pancake batter from 1 egg, flour, and milk. Dip the egg into the batter and fry it swimming in hot oil until beautifully golden brown. Then toss it again in sugar and cinnamon, the pancake batter, and fry again swimming and so forth until all the batter is used up.
Sharing the final product on Zoom
In a separate saucepan, heat wine with 1 tablespoon of sugar.
At last, the egg is placed in a bowl and doused with the sweetened hot wine.