Nougat
4 cups granulated sugar. 3 egg whites. 1/2 cup Karo syrup (white). 1/2 lb. almonds. 1 teaspoon Webb's vanilla. 1 teaspoon Webb's lemon. Put sugar, water and sirup on to cook, beat eggs, and when sirup cooks until a soft ball in cold water, begin beating slowly into eggs, little at a time. Beat until thick, add almonds and pile on buttered dish. Any nuts may be used; hickory nuts are good.
Hettie Ray's Pralines. 3 cups light brown or white sugar. 1 cup sweet milk. 3 tablespoons maple syrup. 1 tablespoon butter. 1 tablespoon vanilla. 1 cup nuts--pecans best. If white sugar is used caramel 1/2 cup.
Put sugar and milk on to cook and stir constantly. When begins to boil, add maple sirup and cook until soft ball stage, add vanilla and butter, remove from fire. Let stand few minutes. Beat until creamy, add flavoring and nuts. Drop by spoonfuls on oil paper.
Two candies run together under one heading: an Italian-style beaten nougat and a set of Louisiana-style pralines. Both hinge on hitting the soft-ball stage accurately, so a candy thermometer is worth more here than any other equipment.
- The missing waterWater appears in the method but not the ingredient list. For 4 cups sugar and 1/2 cup syrup, about 1 cup water is the usual proportion; add enough to dissolve the sugar and no more, since it all boils off anyway.
- Soft ball, in numbersSoft ball is 235-240F. For nougat that pours into egg whites and still sets, aim at the top of that range; below 235F the finished candy is likely to stay sticky.
- Karo and Webb'sKaro white is light corn syrup, still sold and unchanged in function -- it is there to prevent crystallisation. Webb's was a brand of flavouring extract named in the original; any good vanilla and lemon extract does the same job.
- Beating the nougatPouring 240F syrup into egg whites while beating by hand is the reason this recipe reads as hard work. A stand mixer on medium, with the syrup going down the side of the bowl in a thin stream, does it in five to eight minutes.
- The almondsHalf a pound of almonds most likely means blanched almonds, and they are better toasted first and added while still warm.
- Pralines: stir, and watch the milkSugar and milk together will scorch on the bottom long before they reach 236F. Use a heavy pan, keep the heat moderate, and stir as instructed rather than walking away.
- Pralines: the caramel note"If white sugar is used caramel 1/2 cup" most likely means caramelising half a cup of the sugar separately and stirring it in, to supply the colour and flavour brown sugar would have given. With brown sugar, skip it.
- Pralines: flavouring appears twiceThe method adds vanilla with the butter and then "add flavoring" again after beating. One tablespoon total, stirred in after beating begins, is the sensible reading.
- Timing the dropBeat the praline mixture only until it loses its gloss and thickens, then work fast -- it stiffens in the pan within a minute or two. Oiled paper in the original is parchment now.
- YieldBoth candies fail in damp weather and should be made on a dry day and stored airtight.
Nougat in this form -- beaten egg white, boiled sugar and nuts -- descends from the Mediterranean confections known as torrone in Italy and turrón in Spain, generally traced to almond-growing regions where honey rather than corn syrup did the work. The pralines beside it come from a different tradition altogether: the French praline, a sugar-coated almond, was reworked in Louisiana with pecans and milk into the soft, creamy patty sold on the streets of New Orleans. The attribution to Hettie Ray, alongside a call for a 'Webb's' extract, is characteristic of a contributed community collection.