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Dessert

White Nougat

A confection made from sugar, honey, blanched almonds, and lemon oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

White Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Melt and strain the sugar, then cook until nearly done.

  2. Boil the honey in a separate pot.

  3. Pour the boiling honey onto the sugar in the kettle.

  4. Set the kettle back on the fire and let it boil.

Work the nougat

  1. Pour the mixture onto a greased marble surface.

  2. Add the oil of lemon and mix well.

  3. When cool enough to handle, turn it up and bleach it on a candy hook until white.

  4. Spread it out on the marble and sprinkle blanched almonds over it.

  5. Fold it up and spread it out again, adding more almonds each time.

  6. Continue working it until all the almonds are incorporated.

Shape and cut

  1. Form the nougat into a long bar and cut it into square pieces.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Honey + almondtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Honey + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,707 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

White sugar
Forms the sweet base that sets into the chewy body of the nougat.
Strained honey
Adds sweetness and moisture and helps keep the nougat soft and chewy.
Blanched almonds
Provide texture and body as they are folded into the warm mass.

The step that matters

Working the nougat on the candy hook until white. Beating air into the warm sugar and honey mass lightens its color and texture. Work it while it is cool enough to handle but still pliable, so it turns white and sets evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, honey, almond. 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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