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Little Nougat Pails

A small nougat shell filled with whipped cream and topped with angelica handles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and angelica match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 135 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Little Nougat Pails

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the nougat

  1. Bake the almonds at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  2. Mix the hot almonds with the boiled sugar until combined.

  3. Turn the mixture onto an oiled slab and flatten it with an oiled lemon.

Shape and fill

  1. Quickly line six small, well-oiled dariole moulds with the mixture.

  2. Once set, carefully remove from the moulds and fill with whipped cream.

  3. Cut small strips of angelica for handles.

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 + angelicatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Cream + angelicatop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provides the bulk and nutty flavour, and gives the nougat its firm, chewy body.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the mixture and, once boiled, hardens as it cools to hold the pail shape.

The step that matters

Lining the moulds quickly. The boiled sugar begins to set as it cools, so the mixture becomes stiff and hard to press evenly into the moulds. Working quickly while it is still pliable keeps the shapes even and prevents cracks.

Swap the angelica

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Angelicathe original
  4. Capersfits less well

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