If you've ever traveled to the South of France or had the good fortune of trying the local confection Nougat de Montélimar you know that once you take a bite of that chewy bar filled with the heady taste of honey and the crunch of roasted pistachios and almonds, you're hooked.
In France there are 2 kinds of nougat: Nougat de Montélimar, which is on the softer side and white from being made with egg whites, and Nougatine, which is darker and made with caramelized sugar. It often has a firmer consistency with more crunch.
This recipe is for the lighter, chewier version. When my aunt and I made this recipe we were inundated by some rogue bees who were drawn to the wafting scent of the heated honey being beaten and fluffed. And although not difficult to make, in theory (the recipe is straightforward), the process is all about timing. Don't attempt this without a candy thermometer or a stand mixer as the temperature of the honey and sugar is a huge part of the chemistry of the confection and a hand mixer is not likely to have enough power. Also local lore dictates to only attempt the recipe on a dry day — if it's cloudy they say the honey will not fluff.
Nougat de Montélimar
Makes a 9x13 pan of candy to divide into pieces
Equipment:
Stand mixer
Candy thermometer
9x13-inch pan
Wafer paper (to line top and bottom of pan): sometimes called rice paper, it's an edible paper that will stick to both sides of the candy. It's available through stores like this one.
Non-stick cooking spray
Ingredients:
(use a kitchen scale and grams if you can, otherwise we've made conversions)
1 kilogram almonds (2 pounds or about 4 cups)
100 grams pistachios (3.5 ounces or 1/2 cup)
500 grams honey (2 1/4 cups)
400 grams sugar (2 cups)
4 egg whites
100 grams powdered sugar (1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Roast the almonds and pistachios: here's our method but generally speaking spread them out on a baking sheet and put them in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally to make sure they toast evenly.
Spray the pan with cooking spray and line it with the wafer paper.
In a bain marie or double boiler (our method is to fill a medium saucepan a third full of water and then place a smaller saucepan within that one. The bottom of the small pan sits in the water that is being heated) heat the honey, stirring constantly. In another pan, heat the sugar, aiming for 250-265°F. Once it reaches the right temperature, add it to the honey (being careful not to burn yourself!). Keep the heat constant and continue to stir the mixture until it reaches 280-290°F.
In a stand mixer, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks (see a visual guide to this here) and then add the honey/sugar mixture a little at a time and carefully (this is where the bees inundated us). The mixture should begin to thicken almost immediately as it cools. Keep the mixer at medium to high (our KitchenAid had to battle the thickness of the ball of nougat). This is where you're beating all the air and fluffy chewiness into the candy. It will begin to form a ball around the beater and have the consistency of a very thick chocolate chip cookie dough with the stickiness of taffy after 6-8 minutes. At this point add the warm nuts and the powdered sugar.
As soon as the nuts have been mixed into the batter, pour it into the prepared pan. It will be thick and you might need an extra hand to get it out. Try coating a wooden spoon with cooking spray to help with the stickiness. Smooth the batter and cover it with a sheet of wafer paper. Use a rolling pin to smooth out the pan, the candy will begin to harden almost immediately so get it smooth as quickly as you can, it won't ever be perfect, that's the nice rustic quality you're going for. Allow it to cool overnight or, if you're in a hurry, for at least 3 hours.
Once cool, unmold the nougat onto a cutting board and slice through in strips and then slice those into the desired size. Wrap the pieces in cellophane or wax paper and they'll last quite a while.
You can also experiment with adding chocolate chunks, currants, lemon peel, other kinds of nuts, etc. This is just the classic recipe that you can use as a jumping off point.
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Yum. I want to make this immediately - except it's too cloudy right now. ;-)
I've done this before, only with slivered almonds instead of whole and I added a bit of orange oil to brighten it up.
They're entirely right - it will not work on high-humidity days. Most candy won't - sugar is hygroscopic, and will happily absorb all the humidity it can get. The primary point of cooking to a certain temperature is to control the water-to-sugar ratio and thus the hardness of the candy. On a humid day, you can cook until it's perfect, but as soon as you take it off the heat, the sugar will absorb humidity from the air, and undo all your hard work.
Someday I'm going to have a de-humidified room for candy-making. Or maybe I'll just move to a desert.
Mmmm, I love soft, fresh nougat. My mouth is watering uncontrollably now. And unfortunately it's not going to be dry or cool anytime soon in my neck of the woods.
This looks like great fun in that "This is going to be bad for my waistline" kind of way.
This sounds very similar to make marshmallows.
It looks like torrone to me and I looooove torrone.
Oh gods. Those are heaven!!!! Aaaah.
do you think this will work without the wafer paper if i just use wax paper or silpats? i don't want to wait for wafer paper to be shipped to me.
How long will this last? (and hwo should it be stored)? Looks like a great gift--to be made in the less humid days of fall.
By "within," do you mean that the double boiler (top bowl) sits "in" the water or on the other pot that is boiling the water? Makes a difference, no?
OMG! When travelling to France, as soon as I've passed the frontier I almost immediately start looking for a shop or even a service station to get some of that stuff.
Thank you for the recipe!!
My mom and I decided that our summer project would be to make a good torrone. We made about 10 different recipes and variations (I'm not exaggerating) and this was the only one that turned out perfectly! Thank you for helping us solve this epic torrone dillemma!
I recently went to Montelimar, France, where I ate the most delicious nougat cake I've ever had. The French call it "gateau au nougat" or sometimes "tarte au nougat": http://www.histoiresucree.com/product_pages/nougat_cake.html
My guess is that they keep their recipe secret but if anyone got a hold of it, PLEASE share!
I've made torrone (Italian version of nougat) several times now, but wanted to try this recipe to see if it could produce a more consistent result. That said, I found the instructions and procedure of this recipe quite flawed. If I did not have previous experience making torrone, I don't think my recipe would have turned out at all. It did turn out, however with some significant modifications/changes:
First, I weighed everything; it seems that many of the volume measurements given are off, sometimes by a fair amount. This seems especially apparent with the nuts. 2.2 pounds of nuts is A LOT.
Second, it's very difficult to melt sugar without overcooking/caramelizing it without having added *water* to dissolve first. I added about 1/4 cup of water to the sugar to dissolve it.
250-265 is a BIG range for melted sugar; should this be 260-265? I cooked to 263.
The recipe says to cook the honey/liquid sugar in a bain marie/double boiler. It doesn't mention that this would take an exceptionally long time--probably 1-2 hours. As such, I took the honey and added melted sugar mixture out of the bain marie and cooked it to 285 over direct heat.
The eat the sugar/egg mixture needs to be beaten until very cool--about 15 minutes, not 6-8. I then added the powdered sugar completely first, then nuts. I think it's the powdered sugar that makes this recipe tighter and maybe more forgiving than some others without.
My final results yielded soft torrone that did not ooze (a problem I've had with other recipes, albeit intermittently).
Too, if you're not comfortable with candy making, I'd say this is a recipe to avoid. It's not easy and takes a long time/a lot of preparation. These are expensive ingredients to have to throw out due to recipe failure.
Does this taste anything like divinity candy? My mother-in-law makes the best. I've never tried a nougat candy but going to France in March (2012) so will definitely try it and then I will try your recipe. -- Sherry (www.rosemaryandthegoat.com)