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Dessert

Quick-made Nougat

A sweet confection made from sugar, glucose, egg whites, and flavorings, cooked to a hard consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and almond 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 ↓

Quick-made Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 270°F (132°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the nougat

  1. Dissolve sugar and glucose in water and cook to 270°F (132°C).

  2. Pour the hot mixture in a thin stream over the beaten egg whites while beating continuously.

Finish and set

  1. Add frappe powder and bitter chocolate to taste, along with vanilla and almonds.

  2. Stir until the mixture is thick, then pour into trays lined with wafer sheets.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Sugar
Cooked to 270°F, it sets into a firm, chewy candy base.
Glucose
Helps prevent sugar from crystallizing, keeping the nougat smooth and tender.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the nougat its light, airy structure.
Cocoa butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and gives a smooth, rich mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup over the egg whites. The syrup must be added in a thin, steady stream while beating constantly. Pouring too fast or stopping the beater lets the syrup clump or deflate the foam, so the nougat loses its airy structure.

“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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