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Dessert

Fruit Nougat

A confection made from cream, egg whites, and fruit, set in a pan and cut into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 147 recipes. Both carry 3-methyl-1-butanol, which smells fusel, malty. The science ↓

Fruit Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the nougat

  1. Dissolve the cream as for Fruit Icings.

  2. Whip in the egg whites.

  3. Stir in the French fruits.

  4. Pour the mixture into a deep pan.

  5. Set aside until the next day.

Cut and wrap

  1. Cut into large squares like nougat.

  2. Wrap in wax paper.

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. Pineapple + plumtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol (fusel, malty).

  2. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Cream + pineappletop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + pineappletop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

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

  5. Cream + plumtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Cream
Forms the rich, soft body of the nougat.
Egg whites
Whipped to trap air, giving the nougat a light, set structure.
French fruits
Add fruity flavour and pieces of texture throughout the nougat.

The step that matters

Whip in the egg whites. Egg whites must be whipped into the cream so they hold air and help the mixture set with a light texture rather than a dense one.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, pineapple):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, pineapple. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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