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Nougats, Small
Nougats intended for small moulds should be made in the same way as for large ones, except that the almonds should be finely ?shredded instead of being quartered. When the paste is ready, put it into the small oiled moulds, and take care that it is pressed into all the corners. It is well for three or four persons to be engaged at once in filling the moulds, that they may be done as expeditiously as possible, and so be all of one colour, as the nougat gets darker with being melted. Turn the shapes out when set, fill them with whipped cream, and serve, neatly arranged, on a folded napkin. Probable cost, Jordan almonds, 2s. 6d. per pound; sweet almonds, 1s.
This is a variation entry rather than a standalone recipe: it assumes you have already read the method for large nougats, which in Cassell's means blanched almonds bound with caramelised sugar and pressed into oiled moulds to set as a crisp, hollow case. The finished shapes are edible containers, not chewy white nougat.
- What the paste actually isSugar melted and cooked to a caramel, stirred through warm dry almonds until every piece is coated; the recipe itself gives no temperature. It is what a modern kitchen calls nougatine or croquant. There is no egg white, honey or aeration involved.
- The hinge: work hot and work fastThe caramel stiffens within a minute or two of leaving the pan and darkens the whole time it sits over heat. The instruction to put three or four people on the moulds is the real technique here; alone, warm the almond mixture in a very low oven and mould one shape at a time, returning the bowl to the heat between each.
- Shredded almondsBlanched almonds cut lengthways into thin strips, not the ready-flaked kind, which are too fragile to hold a small mould's corners. Dry them in a low oven before they meet the sugar; damp almonds seize the caramel.
- Oiling the mouldsUse a flavourless oil applied thinly with a brush, and metal moulds rather than silicone, since the paste has to be pressed hard against a rigid surface. Small dariole, barquette or tartlet tins work. Press with a lemon half or an oiled spoon back to keep from burning your fingers.
- Caramel burnsSugar at this temperature is far hotter than boiling water and sticks to skin. Keep a bowl of iced water beside the bench and do not attempt this with children helping, whatever the original suggests about extra pairs of hands.
- Turning out and timingThe shapes release cleanly once fully cold and hard, which for small moulds is quick. Fill with whipped cream only at the moment of serving; the cases soften and weep soon after meeting cream, and will soften in a humid room even empty.
- Jordan almondsNot the sugared confetti sweets sold under that name today. The word is a corruption of the French jardin, and it meant a large, long, fine-quality Spanish almond. Any good plump blanched almond will do.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities, only prices per pound. The folded napkin was standard presentation for such dishes; a doily does the same job.
- The prices2s. 6d. and 1s. per pound are Victorian retail costs, part of the "probable cost" note the book appends as a costing guide. They are a useful reminder that almonds were an expensive imported luxury.
Nougat in a Victorian English cookery book usually means the dark almond-and-caramel work that French confectioners call nougatine, not the white honey-and-egg-white sweet of Montelimar. It was above all an architectural material: pastry cooks moulded it into baskets, vases, plinths and the tiered pieces montees that crowned a formal table, a style generally traced to Careme and the early nineteenth-century French kitchen and imported wholesale into grand English service. Cassell's treats it as a practical accomplishment for a competent household cook, scaling the showpiece down to individual cream-filled cases that a servant could turn out for a dinner party. The frank instruction to muster three or four people at the moulds is a glimpse of the staffed kitchen the book assumed, and the darkening caramel it warns about is the same problem confectioners still manage today by working in small batches over gentle heat.