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Nougat Squares

A chewy nougat made with raisins, dates, egg white, flavoring, and confectioner's sugar, brushed with melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and dates work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 358 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nougat Squares

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped sultana raisins, chopped dates, egg white, flavoring, and cold water.

  2. Gradually add confectioner's sugar until a smooth paste forms.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 3 hours.

Finish and cut

  1. Brush the top with melted chocolate.

  2. Cut into squares.

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. Raisin + datestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Dates + chocolatetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together86 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Binds the fruit and sugar into a cohesive paste that holds its shape.
Confectioner's sugar
Sweetens and thickens the mixture into a smooth, firm paste.
Chopped dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the paste.
Chopped sultana raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the paste.

The step that matters

Gradually add confectioner's sugar. Adding sugar in small amounts lets it dissolve evenly into the egg white and fruit. Adding it all at once can leave lumps or a stiff, uneven paste that will not hold together smoothly.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pumpkinfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, egg, sugar, chocolate. 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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