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This sounds very much like Divinity Fudge. My only precaution would be to never, never attempt making it on a humid day or you will end up with a sticky gooey mass that will not harden. Made properly on a dry day, it should melt in your mouth.

I was just going to say it's a complicated form of Divinity.

In my childhood home, Divnity, along with rum balls, were a special holiday treat made by my great grandmother and grandmother. It wouldn't seem to be the holidays without either.

Now that grandmother has died, I am going to have to make at least rum balls. Sadly, the successful candy making skills did not carry on in my genes, so divinity will have to wait.

Oh, and my father just returned from a month long sojourn in Canada and brought back a whole box of Canadian Nougat Bars. A whole bar of nougat with gummy bits. It's better than a t-shirt.

I have done it successfully before (using Epicurious' pistachio torrone recipe above, which is actually from Gourmet Mag!), but wow, is it ever sticky - much more so than making plan old marshmallow fluff.

If you're in the NY area, you can get edible rice paper at the NY Cake and Baking Supplies store on W. 22nd St. to sandwich each piece in true Italian style.

I made the same recipe as goodfoodstories and I thought it was nasty! Waaaaaay too sweet! It's a hot mess to make too, no matter how organized you are!

I've made the pistachio nougat from Aran's site (check out her chocolate variation - it's killer!) and only have a couple suggestions: Grease the heck out of your parchment paper, since dusting with powdered sugar or cocoa powder didn't work to keep my nougat from sticking, and have *everything* pre-measured so that everything can just get whipped together quickly once it all reaches temperature. I've done it on the fly, and it's not worth the extra stress.

Yes, yes! I make torrone (Italian nougat) semi-regularly and LOVE it! I also make it for holidays/gifts.

I use Martha Stewart's recipe (w/o coconut, though). It is relatively simple, but it's critical to follow the directions exactly. Definitely sticky stuff!

Definitely use rice paper (ostia), if you can find it. I buy on line. I think I used eBay, actually! Italian specialty stores have it, too.

Not worth the stress in my opinion! But it's incredible--one of my favorite things. I almost made myself week eating it all the time when I studied in Morocco. Rosewater and almond is my fav.

I've made montelimar which is very similar. It's very sticky straight out of the bowl, but tasty. I imagine the labor and mess are why these are seasonal treats. You can also use corn syrup in lieu of glucose since they both work as interfering agents. Don't worry about glucose being inauthentic; Italian grandmothers didn't exactly have access to kitchen aid mixers either. ;)

We made nougat in pastry school literally last week! It is pretty easy, as long as you have a candy thermometer. I'd say a silpat is pretty useful too. We did two rounds of sugar syrup though- I think it was add the softball sugar-honey syrup to the egg whites, then add another, hotter syrup a little later, right before quickly folding in the nuts and dumping it out of the bowl to roll flat (quickly!)
Glucose really isn't anything scary, it's just an invert sugar that, as mentioned, helps keep the sugar from re-crystallizing. You can use corn syrup instead; that's also an invert sugar. I'd definitely not skip it though- I saw someone's batch re-crystallize even WITH the glucose, and it's basically a crumbly mess that you can't do anything with except throw in the compost :-/

Oops, sorry, heartmignardise already said corn syrup works too!

I've done it once. It was a VERY sticky job! I'd echo other posters comments - glucose was scary to me (it's because the glucose comes in such a small jar, yet the recipe calls for a fair amount of it - it didn't seem right somehow...)

Packaging it for giving as gifts is the thing that stumps me - cellophane is prone to sticking, but it would look the nicest. However it's never fun getting that tiny scrap of cellophane that wouldn't peel off in your mouthfull of nougat!

From memory, I think the visiting Italian markets put it in a bit of wax paper - wrapping it this way, sealed with a festive sticker might work well?