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Dessert

Little Nougat Pails

Small nougat-like cakes made from toasted almonds and sugar, flattened, molded, filled with whipped cream, and handled with angelica strips.

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

Make the nougat

  1. Toast the almonds until golden brown.

  2. Mix the hot almonds with the boiled sugar.

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

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

Fill and finish

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

  2. 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
Provide the main body and nutty flavour, giving the nougat its chewy texture.
Castor sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled and cooled, sets into the firm structure of the nougat.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and richness to contrast with the firm, set nougat.

The step that matters

Lining the moulds quickly. The sugar mixture stiffens as it cools, so it must be pressed into the oiled moulds while still hot and pliable. Oiling the moulds keeps the set nougat from sticking when it is removed.

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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