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Dessert

Nougat Frosting

A sweet frosting made from almonds, sugar, water, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Nougat Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond praline

  1. Brown the almonds in the oven.

  2. Caramelize 4 tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Add the browned almonds to the caramelized sugar.

  4. Cool the mixture.

  5. Pound the almonds and sugar together.

Make the frosting

  1. Boil 1 cup of sugar and 1-3 cups of boiling water until it threads.

  2. Add the pounded almonds to the sugar mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture onto the beaten egg whites.

  4. Beat until thick enough to spread.

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

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

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

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

  3. Almond + eggtop 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Caramelized for flavor and boiled to a syrup that sets the frosting's body.
Chopped almonds
Browned and pounded to add toasty, nutty flavor and body to the frosting.

The step that matters

Beat until thick enough to spread. Hot syrup poured onto egg whites must be beaten long enough for the whites to cool and stabilize into a thick, spreadable foam. Stopping early leaves a runny frosting that will not hold its shape.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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