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Dessert

Chocolate Nougat

A sweet confection made from melted sugar, ground almonds, and Mexican chocolate, shaped into a square and cut into pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,733 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the nougat

  1. Melt the sugar in a pan until it turns a nice brown color.

  2. Stir in the ground almonds and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture onto an oiled slab and shape it into a square about ½ inch thick.

  4. As it cools, turn up the edges to the center.

  5. Cut into pieces when nearly cold.

Coat the pieces

  1. Melt the Mexican chocolate over low heat until smooth.

  2. Add melted chocolate butter.

  3. Stir until fully combined.

  4. Stand the mixture in a basin of water.

  5. Stir frequently while coating the nougat.

  6. Coat the pieces with chocolate.

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. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Castor sugar
Melts and browns to form the caramel base that sets the nougat.
Ground almonds
Add body and nutty flavor to the caramelized sugar mass.
Mexican chocolate
Forms the sweet, rich coating that encloses the nougat pieces.
Chocolate butter
Adds fat that makes the chocolate coating smooth and glossy.

The step that matters

Melting the sugar to a brown caramel. Sugar burns quickly once it passes golden, so it should be watched closely and removed at the right brown shade to avoid a bitter taste.

“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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