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Dessert

Nougat Loaf

A sweet loaf made from sugar syrup, beaten egg whites, glucose, and optional nuts or fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Nougat Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrups

  1. Combine 2½ cups sugar and 1 cup water in a saucepan to make Syrup No. 1. Cook until it threads.

  2. Combine 1¼ cups sugar, ½ cup water, and 3 tablespoons glucose in another saucepan to make Syrup No. 2. Cook until brittle when tested in cold water.

Make the nougat

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Pour Syrup No. 1 over the beaten egg whites.

  3. Add Syrup No. 2 to the mixture from step 2.

  4. When the mixture begins to stiffen, fold in the nuts and fruit.

  5. Pour the mixture into a greased pan lined with greased 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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + nutstop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,624 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the nougat its light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Cooked into syrups that set firm and give the loaf its sweetness and chewy body.
Glucose
Interferes with sugar crystallization, keeping the syrup smooth and the nougat tender.

The step that matters

Cooking Syrup No. 2 until brittle. Sugar syrup must reach the correct stage to set firm. Undercooked syrup leaves the nougat soft and sticky, while overcooked syrup makes it hard and brittle. Testing in cold water shows when the syrup has reached the right point.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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