Nougat
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
⅓ cup corn sirup
1½ cups nut-meats
1 cup water
½ cup candied cherries
4 egg-whites
Boil together one-half the sugar, half of the water and half of the corn sirup to the crack stage, or 280° F. Remove the sirup from the fire and pour it slowly over the well-beaten whites and continue beating until it is cool. While beating, cook the remaining half of the ingredients to the crack stage, or 280° F. Remove and add at once to the first mixture, beating while adding. When cool, add the vanilla, nut-meats and candied cherries and pour into buttered pans. Smooth over the surface and let it stand overnight before cutting. In the morning cut and wrap in oiled paper.
A two-stage Italian-meringue nougat: hot syrup beaten into egg whites, then a second batch of syrup added to firm it. The whole thing hinges on hitting 280°F twice and having the whites already stiff when the first syrup goes in.
- Temperature and the "crack stage"280°F is the soft-crack range, and the recipe names the number, so trust the thermometer over the cold-water test. Cooked much past 290°F the nougat sets hard and brittle rather than chewy.
- Corn sirupOrdinary light corn syrup, much the same sort of product called for here a century ago. It is doing real work as an interfering agent; without it the sugar is far more likely to crystallize into a grainy mass.
- Nut quantityThe nut measure as printed does not resolve to a usable figure. For two cups of sugar, 1½ to 2 cups of toasted almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts is the conventional proportion; use judgment rather than the number on the page.
- Beating equipmentFour whites plus two hot syrups is heavy work by hand, though it was done that way with a rotary beater when the recipe was printed. A stand mixer with the whisk is easier; pour each syrup in a thin thread down the side of the bowl, not onto the moving whisk, which flings it into hard threads.
- Egg whites and heatThe syrup goes in at 280°F, which brings the meringue well past 160°F and cooks the whites as it is incorporated. Have the whites beaten to stiff peaks before the first syrup is ready — the timing gives no room to catch up.
- The second syrupThe second batch must go in the moment it comes off the heat, while still fluid. It stiffens the mixture noticeably; expect the beater to labor, and stop while the mass is still spreadable.
- Pans and settingAn 8-inch square pan, buttered and lined, gives a bar about an inch thick. The overnight rest is not optional — the candy needs to dry and firm before it will cut cleanly.
- Cutting and storageUse a heavy knife warmed under hot water and wiped dry between cuts. Wrapped individually in wax or parchment, the pieces keep several weeks; unwrapped, they weep and stick in humid air.
- YieldRoughly two pounds of candy, or about forty small squares.
Nougat in this two-syrup form descends from the Mediterranean confections of Montélimar in Provence and turrón in Spain, both traditionally built on honey, egg white and almonds and both generally traced back to medieval Arab sugar confectionery. American cookbooks of the early twentieth century substituted granulated sugar and corn syrup for honey, which made the sweet far cheaper and more predictable, and candied cherries were a standard flourish of the period — the same glacé fruit that went into fruitcake and tutti-frutti ice cream. The cookbook that carried this recipe gave space to a candy section because homemade sweets were then a normal part of holiday giving; a boxed, hand-cut, paper-wrapped nougat was a gift a household could produce without a confectioner.