Among the Christmas sweets, today we dedicate ourselves to the preparation of nougat: a riot of dried fruit mixed with honey, sugar and egg white. There are basically two types of nougat, which are distinguished on the basis of consistency (soft and hard): normally, the preparation is quite long and complex (the longer the honey is cooked with the egg white, the harder the nougat will be). I found a way to speed up the times by making a special soft nougat.
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Identity Card of the Recipe
- 401 KCal Calories per serving
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Ingrediants
- 150 g of almonds
- 2 sheets of waffles
- 160 ml of water
- 40 g of egg white
- 20 g of glucose syrup
- 160 g of honey
- 240 g + 20 g of sugar
- 50 g of pine nuts
- 100 g of walnuts
- 150 g of hazelnuts
- 1 vanilla pod
Materials Needed
- Electric whips
- Casseroles
- Sugar thermometer
- Scale weighs food
- Cooking pan
- Rectangular pan with dimensions of 20 x 30 cm
- Baking paper
Preparation
- Toast the dried fruit in the oven at 160 ° C for 10 minutes or in a pan, taking care to turn it often to avoid burning it. The dried fruit is perfectly toasted when it has given off a pleasant aroma and assumed a slightly amber color. To put aside.
Did you know that
In this recipe we used a mix of dried fruit (hazelnuts, almonds, pine nuts, walnuts): you can customize the nougat according to your tastes, for example by using only a type or two of dried fruit. To make the nougat even more delicious, you can add candied fruit (cherries, limes, pineapples, etc.).- Beat the egg white until stiff peaks, adding 20 g of sugar.
- In a saucepan, pour the sugar, water, glucose syrup and flavor with the seeds of a vanilla pod. Bring to the heat and cook until reaching 141 ° C-145 ° C.
- Meanwhile, heat the honey up to 125 ° C.
- Pour the honey at 125 ° C into the bowl with the egg whites, continuing to beat the mixture with the electric whisk. When the honey is incorporated into the egg white, add quickly, but slowly, the sugar syrup at 141 ° C
Attention!
Honey and hot sugar must be added almost simultaneously to the egg white, one after the other: for this reason it is advisable to be very careful in controlling the temperatures. Honey reaches the set temperature faster than sugar, so it is recommended to pour honey first.
Let's briefly remember that sugar goes through 7 very specific cooking stages and each of these is exploited for specific uses. For example, sugar at a temperature between 141 ° C and 145 ° C is widely used for making hard candies and nougat.- Continue to work the mixture with the electric whisk until the ingredients are perfectly blended (1-2 minutes).
- Add the toasted dried fruit and mix with a scoop or a wooden spoon: you will get a very thick but sticky mixture.
- Line a rectangular pan first with baking paper and then with a wafer sheet (wafer), then distribute the mixture and quickly level with a spatula.
- Cover with another sheet of host and level with your hands until you get a thickness of 1.5 cm.
- Leave the nougat to cool in the refrigerator for at least 10 hours.
- Cut the nougat into slices, into logs or into small pieces. Store in the refrigerator for a couple of months or in the freezer for 6 months (the sugar acts as an anti-freeze, therefore the nougat, even if in the freezer, will tend to keep its soft consistency).
Alice's comment - PersonalCooker
Prepare your nougat in time: so you can make many small gift packs to give to your loved ones as a sweet greeting for the holidays! And if you want to dare, cover the nougat with a pour of dark chocolate.Nutritional values and Health Comment on the recipe
The Homemade Soft Nougat is a very caloric dessert, with an energy prevalence borne by lipids, followed by carbohydrates and finally by proteins. Fatty acids are mainly unsaturated, cholesterol is absent and fibers are abundant.
The Homemade Soft Nougat is NOT suitable for the diet of overweight subjects and those suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus or hypertriglyceridemia. The average portion is about 25g (100kcal).