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Dessert

Nougat Aux Amandes

A sweet almond nougat made by drying almonds, melting sugar with lemon juice, mixing, and setting in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Nougat Aux Amandes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Remove the skins from the almonds and spread them on a sheet of paper to dry for at least 12 hours, stirring often.

Make the nougat

  1. In a saucepan, combine the powdered sugar and lemon juice. Heat while stirring until the sugar is melted and turns a reddish color.

  2. Add the hot almonds to the sugar mixture and mix well. Set aside.

Shape and serve

  1. Lightly oil a mold. Pour the nougat mixture onto an oiled tray and flatten it into a thin layer with a knife.

  2. Press the nougat into the mold, ensuring all parts are well sealed and pressed down with a lemon.

  3. Allow to cool, then unmold and serve on a plate.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and crunch of the nougat.
Powdered sugar
Melts and sets into the chewy sweet base that holds the almonds together.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and helps the sugar turn color as it heats.

The step that matters

Heating the sugar and lemon juice. Sugar must be stirred over heat only until melted and lightly colored. Overheating caramelizes and darkens it, making the nougat bitter and brittle, while underheating leaves it too soft to set.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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