Nougat

Nougat is a confection in which nuts are bound with boiled honey or sugar. Some nougat has nuts mixed into a white mass, while other nougat is hard, with amber sugar that breaks together with the nuts. Softness and whiteness are separate qualities, and white nougat can be hard or soft. From Montélimar in southern France and various parts of the Mediterranean to Iran’s gaz and Taiwan’s 牛軋糖 (niúgátáng), there are nougats and related confections that differ in how they are aerated, the kinds of sweetener used and how nuts are used.

Nougat sold in Bruges, Belgium. Varieties mixed with nuts, fruit and other ingredients are displayed in the shop. Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, 2014-07-19 (as stated on the original page; the Exif data gives the following day, the 20th), Bruges, Belgium. Original image / CC BY-SA 3.0. Reduced-size version from the distributing site. The original image’s Exif data contains a Lightroom record, but the specific adjustments are unknown. No additional processing this time.

How White and Black Nougat Are Made

Honey, sugar, glucose and other ingredients are boiled while egg whites are whipped. The two are combined, and then the nuts are added. In Chabert et Guillot’s demonstration recipe (recette: the ingredient proportions and method), sugar, honey and glucose boiled together are allowed to cool somewhat, poured in a thin stream into the foam, and then almonds are added. The production specification for Montélimar also includes a procedure in which the first sugar syrup is combined with the egg whites, syrup boiled to a higher temperature is then added, and the mixture is heated slowly to stabilize it.

Adding almonds roasted through to the center at the end preserves their crunch and aroma. The thin edible wafers on the top and bottom make it easier to spread the soft nougat into a slab and cut it. Hardness changes with the remaining moisture and the cooking time, so color alone does not determine how chewy it is.

Some Provençal black nougat is made by combining honey or sugar with almonds without whipping egg whites. Its dark amber sugar shatters together with the nuts. In the “thirteen desserts” of Christmas, white and black nougat are set out as separate items.

Nāṭif, Torrone and Turrón

The name goes back to the Latin nux by way of Provençal and other words for nut. Meanwhile, a 10th-century cookbook from Baghdad contains a similar confection called nāṭif. The Harran-style nāṭif reconstructed by Daniel Newman adds many kinds of nuts, seeds and spices to honey and egg white. A different recipe from medieval al-Andalus boils honey, lets it cool slightly, mixes in egg white, reheats it until it turns white and thick, and adds almonds or walnuts.

Within the general term nougat, Italy’s torrone and Spain’s turrón have their own names and local methods. Some torrone has honey, sugar, egg white, almonds and other ingredients sandwiched between thin edible paper. In Spain, turrón de Alicante keeps the nuts in pieces, while for turrón de Jijona the nuts are ground finely and the mixture is reheated and worked. Softness varies not only with how the mixture is aerated but also with whether the nuts are used in pieces or as a paste.

Related medieval confections also used techniques for combining honey, egg white and nuts. However, not everything is known about how the methods of each region were transmitted. Local stories that crusader knights brought nougat back from the East also survive as traditions that explain these exchanges.

Turrón Making and Gift-Giving Customs in Early Modern Spain

In the early modern Spanish household manual Manual de mugeres, turrón is made by mixing well-whipped egg white into honey, leaving it for 1 day and, the next day, boiling it while stirring constantly. When 1 drop of the syrup is dropped into cold water and, once cooled, has become hard enough to break, it is done. Peeled and roasted almonds, hazelnuts or pine nuts are added, and the mixture is heated a little more and finished as a block or in shapes for cutting. The guide for determining hardness was not a thermometer reading but the way the cooled syrup broke.

In Alicante, turrón is also tied to Christmas gifts and to payment for work. A 1582 record introduced by the city’s tourist information shows a custom of paying part of wages in coin and another part in turrón. Today, the custom of giving precious honey and nuts lives on in the turrón given during the holidays.

The Wedding Legend of Cremona and Easter in Sardinia

Cremona has a legend that in 1441, at the wedding of Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, a confection shaped like the town’s bell tower, the Torrazzo, was served. The town’s tourist information relates this story, and a nougat festival is held in late autumn. The legend linking the name torrone to the tower and the etymological theory that the name derives from a Latin word meaning to roast nuts are separate explanations.

In Tonara, Sardinia, torrone made with honey, nuts and egg white is also enjoyed at a festival on Easter Monday. In nearby mountain villages, some versions use chestnut or strawberry-tree honey. Although torrone broadly has a place as an Italian Christmas confection, there are also regional customs of using honey gathered in the mountains and enjoying torrone at Easter markets.

White Confections and the Name Nougat in 16th-Century France

Exhibition texts at Mucem in Marseille state that Nostradamus’s 1555 book on preserves includes a white almond “pignolat,” and that a 1595 pharmacy text contains nogat, an Occitan word related to nuts. Before nougat became a regional specialty, confections combining honey and nuts were recorded in books under other names. Their appearance in a pharmacy text suggests that medicines and sweet confections had closely related uses.

Montélimar Becomes a Center of Production

INAO explains that almond cultivation spread in the 16th century and that almonds replaced the walnuts used until then. Town records from 1701 mention gifts of honey and almond nougat, and by the late 18th century specialized artisans had become established. The nut changed from walnuts to almonds, the nougat was used as a gift from the town, and it eventually became a specialty made by dedicated artisans.

From the late 19th century onward, gifts by the local politician Émile Loubet and sales along National Route 7 heading south raised its profile. The dry local air is also well suited to making nougat, which contains a lot of honey and easily becomes sticky in humid conditions.

“Nougat de Montélimar” was registered as an EU Protected Geographical Indication in November 2024, covering the town and 13 surrounding municipalities. Honey must make up at least 25% of the dry weight of the sweetening ingredients at the time of preparation. Almonds must make up at least 30% of the finished product, or else at least 28% almonds plus at least 2% pistachios. For honey and for nuts, the weights used as the basis for calculating the percentages differ. It uses a white mass containing egg white and roasted nuts, and both soft and hard nougat are included.

Iran’s Gaz, Made with Honeydew Gathered from Branches

European nougat uses honey or sugar made from cultivated crops, but Iran’s gaz has a tradition of gathering and using a natural sweetener, gaz-angobin. According to the researcher Bahram Grami, this is not simply sap but honeydew excreted by insects on shrubs. A leather catch-tray is placed under the branches, the honeydew is knocked down with light taps, and leaves and other debris are removed with a sieve. Honeydew from insects on plants is gathered and used as a sweetener for confectionery.

In the method described by Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar, the honeydew is boiled in water and strained, combined with whipped egg white, strained again, and heated with added sugar until it becomes a paste, and then pistachios or almonds are mixed in. It is shaped into small flat rounds or bite-sized pieces and buried in flour to prevent moisture absorption and sticking. Not all gaz made today uses the same sweetener, but this method of gathering honeydew and boiling it differs from nougat made with honey or sugar, starting with how the raw materials are prepared.

Nogha made in and around Tabriz and elsewhere in Iran. The white mass contains nuts, and some pieces are shown with thin wafers. Photo: البرز فلاح فیلتر, 2011-03-24 (as stated on the original page), location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 3.0. Reduced-size version from the distributing site. Any processing at the time of original publication is unknown; no additional processing this time.

Taiwan’s Milk-Enriched Niúgátáng and American Chocolate Bars

Some Taiwanese 牛軋糖 (niúgátáng) uses maltose, butter, milk powder, eggs, almonds and other ingredients, which add a milky aroma. Some products labeled “French-style” are also made with dairy products.

In American chocolate bars, a soft, light, aerated filling is called nougat, and some products layer it with caramel and coat it in chocolate. The manufacturer says that 3 Musketeers, launched in 1932, got its name because 3 bars were originally packed in 1 bag. The use of nougat changed from slab confections mixed with many nuts to confections in which a lightly aerated mass is coated in chocolate.

Finely Worked Nuts Without Egg-White Foam

In German, Nougat also refers to an ingredient made by finely working roasted nuts or almonds, sugar and cocoa. At Niederegger in Lübeck, hazelnuts imported whole are roasted in Germany, made into a paste, rolled very finely and then conched until smooth. In contrast to keeping the nuts in pieces within an egg-white foam, the nuts are worked so finely that no pieces can be felt.

This brown nougat is also connected with gianduja from Turin. The theory that gianduja arose from the cocoa shortage caused by Napoleon’s economic blockade is widely told, but the food-culture historian Antonella Campanini says it is not clear exactly when it came into being. Antonio Bazzarini’s 1813 proposal for a substitute used sweet almonds, lupins, grains and sugar syrup, a formulation different from the later gianduja made with hazelnuts. The nut-and-cocoa techniques developed in 19th-century Turin have now spread to chocolate fillings and spreadable creams.

Glossary