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Dessert

A Good Nougat Loaf

A nougat loaf made with sugar, glucose, grease, water, egg whites, cherries, walnuts, pineapple, 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).

Build 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; mix well.

Set and slice

  1. Pour the mixture into a wafer-lined box and press down with a board.

  2. 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

Egg whites
Whipped foam that traps air, giving the nougat its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Forms the syrup that sets firm as it cools, giving the nougat its chewy body and sweetness.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the nougat smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
Walnuts
Add crunch and texture throughout the set nougat.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup over the egg whites. The syrup must be hot enough to cook the egg white foam and stabilise it. Pouring slowly while stirring rapidly keeps the foam from collapsing and spreads the heat evenly, so the mixture turns stiff rather than lumpy or runny.

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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