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Dessert

A Good Nougat Loaf

A nougat loaf made with sugar, glucose, egg whites, fruit, nuts, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

A Good Nougat Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a kettle, combine sugar, glucose, grease, and water.

  2. Cook the mixture to 260°F (127°C).

Make the nougat

  1. Have a helper pour the hot mixture over the whipped egg whites while you stir rapidly.

  2. Continue stirring until the mixture is stiff.

  3. Add vanilla extract, cherries, walnuts, and pineapple, and mix well.

Set and slice

  1. Pour the mixture into a wafer-lined box.

  2. Press down with a board.

  3. Let it set overnight before slicing.

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 + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Walnut + pineappletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

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
Provides sweetness and, with the glucose, forms the structure of the set candy.
Glucose
Keeps the sugar from crystallising, so the nougat stays smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
Whites of 18 eggs
Whipped stiff, they trap air that gives the nougat its light, airy texture.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft nougat.
Cherries
Add fruit flavour, colour and chewy bits throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup over the egg whites while stirring rapidly. The syrup must be hot enough to cook the whites and set the foam, and stirring constantly spreads the heat and keeps the air bubbles evenly distributed so the nougat doesn't collapse or turn lumpy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, pineapple, vanilla. 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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