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Dessert

Quick-made Nougat

A confection made by cooking sugar and glucose, then folding in beaten egg whites and flavorings.

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 syrup

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

Whip and flavor

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

  2. Add frappe powder and bitter chocolate to taste.

  3. Flavor with vanilla and add almonds to taste.

  4. Stir until thick and 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
Forms the cooked syrup that sets into the chewy body of the nougat.
Glucose
Stops the sugar from crystallising, keeping the nougat smooth and soft.
Whites of 40 eggs
Beaten into a foam that traps air and gives the nougat its light structure.
Paraffin or substitute
Adds gloss and a softer bite to the finished nougat.
Cocoa butter
Adds fat that gives a smooth mouthfeel and richness.

The step that matters

Pour the syrup in a thin stream while beating the egg whites. Pouring slowly while beating keeps the hot syrup from cooking the egg whites in lumps and lets it blend evenly into the foam. A thick, fast pour can deflate the foam and make the texture uneven.

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

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