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Nougat
1 cup Karo, Red Label 1/8 teaspoon salt 2 cups granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/3 cup water 1/3 cup candied cherries cut 2 egg whites fine 1/2 cup chopped almonds Pour the Karo into a saucepan, add the sugar, salt and water and boil (258 degrees F.) until a little, tried in cold water, forms a hard ball. Beat the egg whites stiff and pour in the candy mixture, beating constantly until the mixture is almost as thick as whipped cream. Stir in the vanilla, cherries and nuts and pour into a pan oiled well with Mazola. The Nougat should be about half inch thick. Let stand over night, cut into oblong pieces and wrap in wax paper.
A corn-syrup nougat from a manufacturer's booklet, essentially an Italian meringue whipped stiff with hot syrup. It works as written, but the branded ingredients and the equipment assumptions need translating.
- Karo Red LabelKaro was sold in colour-coded labels; Red Label was the darker, more strongly flavoured syrup, Blue Label the pale one. Modern light corn syrup gives a whiter, cleaner-tasting nougat; modern dark corn syrup goes further in colour and molasses flavour than the original probably did.
- MazolaCorn oil, from the same company that made Karo, and still sold under that name. Any neutral oil will do for greasing the pan; better still, line the pan with parchment and oil that.
- 258F is the whole recipeThe temperature is the hinge. Use a candy thermometer and take the syrup to about 258F. Much below that and the nougat stays soft and sticky; much above and it turns brittle and shatters rather than cutting.
- The cold-water testThe recipe gives both together: boil until a little tried in cold water forms a hard ball, with 258F as the gloss. A spoonful dropped into cold water should form a ball that holds its shape and is firm but still yields when pressed.
- BeatingWhipping stiff whites while pouring in a stream of boiling syrup is much easier with a second pair of hands. Use a stand mixer, pour the syrup down the side of the bowl in a thin steady stream away from the whisk, and keep beating for several minutes until the mass is thick, glossy and beginning to hold its shape.
- WeatherSugar work fails in humid air. On a damp day the nougat will stay tacky no matter how accurate the thermometer, so choose a dry day and do not refrigerate the finished slab.
- Pan and yieldAn 8-inch square pan gives roughly the half-inch depth called for. Expect somewhere around 35 to 40 pieces of about an inch by an inch and a half.
- Cutting and keepingOvernight setting is not optional; the candy needs the time to firm. Cut with a long oiled knife, wrap each piece in waxed paper or cellophane, and store airtight at room temperature, where it keeps a couple of weeks.
- Egg whitesThe hot syrup heats the whites considerably but does not reliably pasteurise them. Anyone cooking for the very young, the elderly or the immune-compromised should use pasteurised whites.
Nougat proper is a Mediterranean confection of whipped egg white, honey and almonds, the French version from Montelimar being the best known, and the name is generally traced through Occitan nogat to the Latin for nut. What appears here is its American industrial descendant: honey replaced by glucose syrup, which is cheaper and more reliable in a home kitchen. The recipe appears to come from a promotional booklet issued by the makers of Karo and Mazola, both corn products of the Corn Products Refining Company, though this is an inference from the branding rather than an established fact, and the branded ingredients are named in every line for a reason. Booklets like this were given away free by the thousand in the early twentieth century, and they did real work in teaching American home cooks to use corn syrup in candy-making, a habit that survives in pecan pie, popcorn balls and the sort of nougat sold in a wrapper.