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Dessert

Denver Nougat

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Denver Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 244°F (118°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrups

  1. Dissolve sugar and glucose in water and cook to 244°F (118°C).

Combine and set

  1. Pour the mixture in a fine stream over the beaten egg whites while a helper stirs.

  2. In a separate pot, cook sugar, glucose, cocoa butter, and paraffin to 274°F (135°C).

  3. Pour this mixture in a fine stream into the first batch.

  4. Add nut meats and vanilla to taste.

  5. Spread the nougat mixture in a wafer-lined starch board.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 sweet crystalline base that the cooked syrup sets around.
Glucose
Interferes with sugar crystals, keeping the nougat smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that traps air, giving the nougat its light, aerated structure.
Cocoa butter
Adds fat that gives the set nougat a smooth, melting texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrups to temperature. Sugar syrup firmness depends on how far it is cooked. The two syrups must reach 244°F and 274°F, since too little cooking leaves the nougat soft and too much makes it hard and brittle.

“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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