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Dessert

Peanut Nougat

A sweet confection made from peanuts and confectioners sugar, pressed into a flat cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Peanut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,754 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Peanut Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the peanuts and remove their skins.

  2. Break the peanuts into small pieces or leave them whole as preferred.

Make the nougat

  1. In a saucepan, dissolve 2 cups of confectioners sugar over low heat.

  2. Once dissolved, quickly add the peanuts and stir rapidly.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan and press it into a flat cake with a buttered knife as it cools.

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. Peanut + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Peanut + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Peanuts
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the nougat.
Confectioners sugar
Melts to form the sweet syrup that binds the peanuts together as it cools.

The step that matters

Stirring in the peanuts quickly after the sugar dissolves. Sugar syrup hardens as it cools and becomes difficult to work once it thickens. Adding the peanuts promptly and stirring rapidly coats them evenly before the mixture sets, and pressing it while still warm gives a uniform cake.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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