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Dessert

Honey Nougat

A candy made by boiling honey and brown sugar, adding egg whites, and mixing in nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Honey and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,069 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Honey Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the nougat

  1. Boil honey and brown sugar together until drops hold their shape in cold water.

  2. Add well-beaten egg whites and cool slowly, stirring constantly until the mixture becomes brittle in water.

  3. Stir in the almonds and cool under a weight.

Finish

  1. Break the candy into pieces or cut and wrap in oiled paper.

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. Honey + almondtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Honey + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,932 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Adds sweetness and softness, and helps keep the candy from turning grainy.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper caramel flavor as it cooks.
Egg whites
Trap air and give the nougat its light, chewy structure.
Almonds
Add crunch and texture to the chewy candy.

The step that matters

Cooling the egg white mixture until brittle in water. Cooking the syrup until drops hold their shape, then cooling while stirring until brittle in water, sets the final texture. Too little sugar concentration leaves nougat soft and sticky; too much makes it hard.

“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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