No. 3655

Nougat, Soft and Hard

Nougat Mou et Dur

Soft White Nougat.—Heat three pounds of white honey, cook separately three pounds of sugar to "ball" (two hundred and thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit). Whip eight egg-whites in a copper basin to a stiff froth, add the honey and the cooked sugar and continue beating the whites on a slow fire until the preparation is at "small crack" (two hundred and ninety degees Fahrenheit). This degree of heat will be recognized by taking up a small part with the tip of a knife, dipping it in cold water, and when crumbled it should fall into a powder. During this time cook three pounds of sugar to "crack" (three hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit); mix it with the whites, adding five pounds of whole almonds and a quarter of a pound of hulled and dried pistachios. Fill some oblong tin cases with this, having them previously lined with white wafers. Pour the nougat in the case, leave to cool, then cut in slices.

Another Proportion is a pound and three-quarters of almonds, one pound of sugar, one pound of white honey, five egg-whites, a quarter of a pound of pistachios, two ounces of burnt almonds, and vanilla; finish the same as the above.

Hard White Nougat.—Four pounds of heated honey, two pounds of sugar cooked to "ball" (three hundred and twenty-six degrees Fahrenheit), two pounds cooked to "small crack" (two hundred and ninety degrees Fahrenheit), five pounds of almonds, a quarter of a pound of pistachios and five beaten egg-whites. Cut in slices when nearly cold. The same preparation as for the soft white nougat.

← No. 3654 Northern Jelly Candies Candies & Bonbons No. 3656 Tortillons →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's nougat is a professional batch — the soft version runs to roughly fourteen pounds of finished candy — and the temperatures are given in the old sugar-boiling vocabulary. A few of the numbers as printed are inconsistent and need reading with care.

Scale it down firstAs written this yields something on the order of 14 lb of nougat, enough for a hotel confectionery counter. Quartering every quantity gives a manageable batch and still fills two loaf-sized frames.
The stage names, in numbers"Ball" is 236-240F, "small crack" (petit cassé) 290F, "crack" (grand cassé) 310F. Use a digital thermometer; the knife-tip-and-cold-water test described here works but is slower and less forgiving with a large mass of syrup.
One printed temperature is wrongIn the hard nougat, "ball" is given as 326F. Ball is 236F, as the soft recipe correctly states. Treat the 326F as a misprint rather than a real instruction — sugar at that heat is past hard crack and at the threshold of caramel.
Beating over the fireThis is the hinge of the recipe: the meringue must be dried out over gentle heat until it reaches 290F, otherwise the nougat never sets and weeps. A stand mixer with the bowl set over a low flame or a wide pot of simmering water replaces the copper basin and the arm work; keep the whisk moving so the whites do not scramble on the metal.
Honey and sugar"White honey" is generally taken to mean a mild, pale, uncrystallised honey — acacia or clover rather than buckwheat or chestnut. The recipe says only to heat it; modern practice is to bring it to about 250F on its own before it goes into the whites, or the meringue slackens.
Almonds and pistachiosUse blanched whole almonds, warmed in a low oven so they do not chill the mass when stirred in. "Hulled and dried" pistachios means skinned and dried out; "burnt almonds" in the second proportion are caramel-coated almonds, not scorched ones.
Wafers and framesThe "white wafers" are edible wafer paper (papier azyme), sold for nougat and still available; it lines the frame and keeps the sticky slab off the tin. Oiled bars set on a marble slab, or a parchment-lined loaf pan, stand in for the oblong tin cases.
Weather mattersNougat is hygroscopic. Made on a humid day it goes soft and tacky within hours; wrap the cut slices individually and store airtight.
CuttingSoft nougat is cut cold with a long oiled knife or a serrated blade; the hard version is cut while still barely warm, as the recipe says, because it becomes glass-brittle at room temperature.

A Little History

Nougat as described here is the Mediterranean almond-and-honey confection that reached Paris kitchens through Provence, where Montélimar had been associated with it since almond planting spread in the region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the name is generally traced to Occitan nougat, from a Latin root meaning nut-cake. Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, printed it in The Epicurean (1894) among the candies and bonbons a great restaurant made in-house for its dessert service and petits fours trays — hence the scale of the batches, which assume a confectioner with a marble slab, wafer paper and a copper meringue basin rather than a household cook.