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Dessert

Extra Fine Nougat

A confection made from egg whites, sugar, glucose, paraffin, cocoa butter, almonds, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Extra Fine Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 246°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and set aside.

  2. In a kettle, cook 40 lbs of sugar, 25 lbs of glucose, and enough water to dissolve to 246°F.

  3. Turn off the heat and let the dasher mix while adding the beaten egg whites.

Make the syrup and combine

  1. In another kettle, cook 40 lbs of sugar, 25 lbs of glucose, 1 lb of paraffin or substitute, and 1 lb of cocoa butter to 274°F.

  2. Slowly pour this mixture into the first batch while the dasher mixes well.

Finish and set

  1. Add 36 lbs of almonds and spread the mixture in wafer-lined boards.

  2. Add any desired flavor or color.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cocoa buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Cocoa butter + almondtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they trap air and give the nougat its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Cooked into a syrup that sets firm as it cools, giving the nougat its body and sweetness.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the nougat smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
Cocoa butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and gives a smoother, less brittle bite.
Almonds
Add bulk, crunch and nutty flavor to the set nougat.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup into the egg whites. The hot syrup must be added slowly while the dasher mixes, so it blends evenly into the foam without deflating the whites or leaving cooked streaks. Too fast a pour can collapse the foam and cause uneven texture.

“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.

More nougat recipes

Almond 15French 10Chocolate 9Peanut 7Ice Cream 6Chocolate Cake 5 See all 30 →

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