Skip to main content
Dessert

Nougat

A confection of boiled sugar, almonds, currants, puff pastry, and whipped vanilla cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the nougat

  1. Boil sugar until it reaches a syrup consistency.

  2. Mix in almonds and currants.

  3. Fill a warm dome mold with the mixture.

Build the cup

  1. Create a foot for the cup.

  2. Attach the foot to a sheet of Pâte à Ouf.

  3. Place the cup upright on the foot.

  4. Make another cup of spun sugar in the same mold.

Decorate and serve

  1. Decorate the nougat cup with puff pastry rings.

  2. Decorate the nougat cup with small pearls.

  3. Top the cup with a dome of spun sugar.

  4. Top the cup with a ball of spun sugar.

  5. Decorate the board with puff pastry rings.

  6. Decorate the board with chopped green almonds.

  7. Fill the cup with whipped vanilla cream just before serving.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

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
Boiled to a syrup that sets into the crisp, brittle structure of the nougat.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour to the nougat mixture.
Currants
Add chewy sweetness and pockets of fruit flavour within the nougat.
Whipped vanilla cream
Adds soft, airy richness that contrasts with the crisp nougat cup.

The step that matters

Boil sugar until it reaches a syrup consistency. Sugar must reach the right concentration to set firm when cooled. Under-cooked syrup stays sticky and will not hold the cup's shape, while over-cooked sugar turns bitter and brittle.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

More nougat recipes

Almond 15French 10Chocolate 9Peanut 7Ice Cream 6Chocolate Cake 5 See all 30 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipes