Skip to main content
Dessert

Turkish Nougat

A confection made from boiled sugar, corn syrup, egg whites, nuts, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turkish Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar, corn syrup, and water until a hard ball forms when dropped into cold water.

Whip and set

  1. Gradually pour the syrup into the stiffly beaten egg whites while beating continuously.

  2. Continue beating until the mixture is creamy.

  3. Fold in the chopped nuts and pour into buttered tins to cool.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Corn + nutstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

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

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, once cooked to a hard ball, the firm, chewy body of the nougat.
Corn syrup
Helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing, keeping the nougat smooth rather than grainy.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the nougat its light, airy structure.
Chopped nuts
Add texture and crunch to the soft, chewy candy.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. Pour the hot syrup in a slow, steady stream while beating constantly. Pouring too fast or stopping the beater can deflate the foam, and the hot syrup gently cooks the whites as it stabilises the foam.

Swap the nuts

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, syrup, egg, 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipes