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Dessert

Good Chewing Nougat

A nougat made with egg whites, sugar, glucose, paraffin or cocoa butter, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cocoa butter share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 49 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Good Chewing Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 240°F (115°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the egg whites

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

Make the syrup

  1. In a kettle, cook the sugar, glucose, and enough water to dissolve to 240°F (115°C).

  2. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool slightly.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and continue mixing.

Combine and set

  1. In another kettle, cook the sugar, glucose, and paraffin (or cocoa butter) to 270°F (132°C).

  2. Combine this mixture with the first batch, add flavoring, and mix in nut meats to taste.

  3. Spread the mixture in wafer-lined boards.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + meattop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cocoa butter + meattop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 recipes

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 texture.
Sugar
Forms the cooked syrup base that gives the nougat its sweetness and firm body when set.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the nougat smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
Paraffin
Adds a fat-like component that gives the set nougat a tender, less brittle bite.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites to the cooled syrup. The syrup must be cooled slightly before the whites are folded in, because very hot syrup can cook and deflate the whipped foam, losing the 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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