Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Ordinary Nougat
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and place them in the oven to heat.
Make the nougat
In a copper bowl, add the sugar and stir continuously with a clean wooden spoon over moderate heat until it begins to melt.
Once the sugar starts to bubble, quickly add the heated almonds and stir gently until well combined.
Line small, deep, fancy-shaped molds with the nougat mixture, slightly oiling the molds first.
Trim the edges of the nougat before it cools completely, as it will become brittle.
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.
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Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Shredded almonds
- Provide the bulk and crunch of the nougat, holding its texture together.
- Sugar
- Melts and sets into the binding that holds the almonds together as the nougat cools.
The step that matters
Trim the edges before the nougat cools completely. Once fully cooled, sugar-based nougat becomes brittle and hard to cut cleanly, so trimming must happen while it is still workable.
“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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