What comes to mind when you think of nougats? Soft, chewy yumminess? So when I found a recipe that called for only two ingredients, I had to try it. I would like you to know that our definition of nougat has changed in the last 100 years. . .Watch the one minute version on Instagram!
Peanut Nougat
Fannie Farmer Cook Book:
The Boston Cooking School
1896
Step One: Shell, remove skins, and finely chop a quart of peanuts. . . thanks to modern convenience, I got to skip the whole shelling and removing skins part, though I can only imagine how long that would have taken. Then sprinkle with salt.
Step Two: Put a pound of sugar in “a perfectly smooth granite saucepan”. I looked it up, and yes, granite saucepans are, in fact, a thing. They apparently were invented in Germany in the 1760s, but popularized in America in the 1870s when two German brothers traveled to the states and started their own Graniteware company. Of course, I don’t OWN any granite saucepans, but I assumed that the main benefit was their non-stick surface, so just went with a regular non-stick pan which seemed to work well enough.
Step Three: Stir constantly until melted to a syrup. This took WAY longer than I expected it to, but when it finally melted, it went almost straight from crumbly to syrup in a matter of minutes. I did think it was pretty cool the sugar melted down like that without any other ingredients.
Step Four: Mix in the “nut meat”. Now, I’ve encountered the term nut meat in multiple 19th century recipes, and it was here that I finally realized that all it means is the nuts themselves! Because, technically, the nuts were inside shells, therefore, when they are pealed, it is the meat of the nut! Of course, I probably could have googled it, but it’s more fun to figure these things out on my own sometimes.
Step Five: Pour into a warm, buttered tin “at once”, then score into pieces. I did actually butter and warm up the pan, and when I poured it in and started to score it, I suddenly realized that it wouldn’t be long before these things hardened into something that would be very hard to cut. So I just went ahead and cut them all the way through.
Step Six: Serve to my husband! Okay, so I may have tried a piece myself first, before it hardened too much, and it was actually very good.
Verdict:
Watching Daniel attempt to bite through them when they were totally cooled down was relatively amusing. It may have taken him quite awhile to actually chomp a piece off, but once he did, he said it was good! And we gave a piece to Flynn, who spent a good fifteen minutes turning it over and over in his hands sucking on it. Oh – though the best part is that Flynn also now has a hat to join his Dad!
So, the question is, are they supposed to be that hard? Apparently, nougats can be anywhere from soft and chewy to hard and brittle, though any peanut nougat recipes you find these days are certainly soft. So my guess is that it was supposed to be hard, but probably not that hard. I wonder if I melted it at a lower heat point if it would have turned out softer? I’m not a confectioner, so I have no idea, but could be worth a try at some point.
Have you ever had a nougat? Hard or soft?
Forest Idylls 