Nougat
Encyclopedia
Nougat (ˈnuːɡɨt , ˈnuːɡɑː ) is a variety of similar traditional confectioneries made with sugar
and/or honey
, roasted nut
s (almond
s, walnut
s, pistachio
s, hazelnut
s and recently macadamia
nuts are common), and sometimes chopped candied fruit
. The consistency of nougat can range from soft and chewy to hard and crunchy depending on its composition, and it is used in a variety of candy bars and chocolates. The word nougat comes from Occitan pan nogat (panuˈɣat), which means nutbread.
There are three basic kinds of nougat: The first, and most common, is white nougat (which appeared in Cremona, Italy in the early 15th century and later in Montélimar
, France
, in the 18th century) is made with beaten egg whites and honey. The second is brown nougat (referred to as "mandorlato" in Italy and nougatine in French) is made without egg whites and has a firmer, often crunchy texture. The third is the Viennese or German nougat which is essentially a chocolate and nut (usually hazelnut) praline
.
Turron, a candy related to the traditional French
nougat, is produced in Spain
(turrón
, or, in Catalan
, torró), in Cremona
, Taurianova
and Sicily
in Italy
(where it is called torrone, or Cupeta from Latin Cupedia; the most famous Sicilian nougat is called cubbaita), Greece
(where it is known as mandolato), Malta
(where it is known as qubbajd and sold in village festivals).
The "nougat" used as an ingredient in many modern candy bar
s in the United States and United Kingdom is different from traditional recipes, being a mixture of sucrose
and corn syrup
aerated with a whipping agent such as egg white
or hydrolyzed soya
protein or gelatine. It may also have vegetable fats and milk powder added, and is typically combined with nuts, caramel, or chocolate. In contrast, some American confections feature such "nougat" as the primary component, rather than one of several. Varieties of nougat are found in 3 Musketeers, Double Decker
, Mars
, Snickers
, Milky Way, Toblerone
, ZERO bar
s, Salted Nut Roll
s, Reese's Fast Break
, Reese's Whipps
, and Baby Ruth
bars.
In Britain nougat, occasionally pronounced 'nugget', is traditionally made in imitation of the southern European varieties and is still commonly found at fairground
s and the seaside
. The most common industrially produced type is coloured pink and white, the pink often fruit flavoured, and sometimes wrapped in edible rice paper with almonds and cherries, sometimes substituted for peanuts, or omitted altogether.
Nougat is also enjoyed in Australasia
and the Far East
, where it is sold as a gourmet confection. Golden Boronia, Mondo Nougat(which also distributes its off-cuts through its subsidiary company "the Margaret River Nougat Company) and Flying Swan are the most widely known manufacturers in Australasia specializing in the production of European style nougat all year round as opposed to the many European manufacturers which treat the product as a seasonal specialty. The popularity of nougat in Australasia has primarily been driven by the Australian manufacturers as well as some imported varieties from South Africa and Europe.
follows the traditional recipes with toasted almond
s, sugar, honey, and egg whites.
Torrone from Italy includes these same basic ingredients as well as vanilla or citrus flavoring, and is often sandwiched between two very thin sheets of rice paper. In the Venetian
town of Cologna Veneta
is produced mandorlato, always based on honey, sugar, egg whites and almonds (mandorle in Italian) but with a different taste and harder to bite than torrone.
Australian nougat is produced by a similar method to French and Italian nougat but usually has a 50% almonds, it can contain Macadamia
nuts, apricots, or other texture modifiers. The nougat is commonly produced in two varieties: soft and crunchy. During candy making, this is done by heating a sugar solution to different temperatures before folding in egg whites and honey.
"Wiener (Viennese) Nougat", or, in German, "Schmelz-Schokolade" (molten chocolate) is a variant which contains only sugar, cocoa butter, almonds, and cocoa mass, and has a mellow consistency. In Germany, gianduja
is traditionally called nougat.
Persian nougat, known as Gaz
, is a variety that has been produced in Isfahan, Iran
for many centuries by various manufacturers including Ashrafi Gaz, Kermani Gaz, Shirin Gaz, Sekkeh Gaz and others. Gaz can also contain the sugary extract of the root of Tamarix
.
A special kind of Gaz is referred to as Nogha (نوقا) in Persian
derived from the word Nougat and made mainly in the Turkish regions of Iran. Nogha is almost exclusively made with walnuts instead of pistachios and almonds which are usual for other types of Gaz. The making of Nogha is very much the same as any other Gaz. The difference is that Nogha is usually spread between two very thin layers of wafers and cut into 10x5x5cm sections which are larger than ordinary Gaz cubes.
There are three types of African nougat, or nougati, ranging from the white kurtzati to the black baxtiti, and mainly containing fruits rather than nuts. The higher fruit-to-nut ratio can be most prominent in the brown simchati nougat variety.
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
and/or honey
Honey
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...
, roasted nut
Nut (fruit)
A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...
s (almond
Almond
The almond , is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree...
s, walnut
Walnut
Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...
s, pistachio
Pistachio
The pistachio, Pistacia vera in the Anacardiaceae family, is a small tree originally from Persia , which now can also be found in regions of Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Sicily and possibly Afghanistan , as well as in the United States,...
s, hazelnut
Hazelnut
A hazelnut is the nut of the hazel and is also known as a cob nut or filbert nut according to species. A cob is roughly spherical to oval, about 15–25 mm long and 10–15 mm in diameter, with an outer fibrous husk surrounding a smooth shell. A filbert is more elongated, being about twice...
s and recently macadamia
Macadamia
Macadamia is a genus of nine species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, with a disjunct distribution native to eastern Australia , New Caledonia and Sulawesi in Indonesia ....
nuts are common), and sometimes chopped candied fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
. The consistency of nougat can range from soft and chewy to hard and crunchy depending on its composition, and it is used in a variety of candy bars and chocolates. The word nougat comes from Occitan pan nogat (panuˈɣat), which means nutbread.
There are three basic kinds of nougat: The first, and most common, is white nougat (which appeared in Cremona, Italy in the early 15th century and later in Montélimar
Montélimar
Montélimar is a commune in the Drôme department in southeastern France. It is the second-largest town in the department after Valence.-History:...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, in the 18th century) is made with beaten egg whites and honey. The second is brown nougat (referred to as "mandorlato" in Italy and nougatine in French) is made without egg whites and has a firmer, often crunchy texture. The third is the Viennese or German nougat which is essentially a chocolate and nut (usually hazelnut) praline
Praline
Praline is a family of confections made from nuts and sugar syrup.-Europe:As originally inspired in France at the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte by the cook of the 17th-century sugar industrialist Marshal du Plessis-Praslin , early pralines were whole almonds individually coated in caramelized sugar,...
.
Distribution and popularity
In southern Europe, where it is likely to have originated, nougat is largely associated with the Christmas season.Turron, a candy related to the traditional French
French cuisine
French cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...
nougat, is produced in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
(turrón
Turrón
Turrón , torró , or torrone , or nougat is a confection, typically made of honey, sugar, and egg white, with toasted almonds or other nuts, and usually shaped into either a rectangular tablet or a round cake. It is frequently consumed as a traditional Christmas dessert in Spain and Italy. There are...
, or, in Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, torró), in Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
, Taurianova
Taurianova
Taurianova is a comune in the Province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region Calabria, located about 80 km southwest of Catanzaro and about 40 km northeast of Reggio Calabria...
and Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
(where it is called torrone, or Cupeta from Latin Cupedia; the most famous Sicilian nougat is called cubbaita), Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
(where it is known as mandolato), Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
(where it is known as qubbajd and sold in village festivals).
The "nougat" used as an ingredient in many modern candy bar
Candy bar
A chocolate bar is a confection in bar form comprising some or all of the following components: cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, milk. The relative presence or absence of these components form the subclasses of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate. In addition to these main...
s in the United States and United Kingdom is different from traditional recipes, being a mixture of sucrose
Sucrose
Sucrose is the organic compound commonly known as table sugar and sometimes called saccharose. A white, odorless, crystalline powder with a sweet taste, it is best known for its role in human nutrition. The molecule is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose with the molecular formula...
and corn syrup
Corn syrup
Corn syrup is a food syrup, which is made from the starch of maize and contains varying amounts of maltose and higher oligosaccharides, depending on the grade. Corn syrup is used in foods to soften texture, add volume, prevent crystallization of sugar, and enhance flavor...
aerated with a whipping agent such as egg white
Egg white
Egg white is the common name for the clear liquid contained within an egg. In chickens it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms around either fertilized or unfertilized egg yolks...
or hydrolyzed soya
Soybean
The soybean or soya bean is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean which has numerous uses...
protein or gelatine. It may also have vegetable fats and milk powder added, and is typically combined with nuts, caramel, or chocolate. In contrast, some American confections feature such "nougat" as the primary component, rather than one of several. Varieties of nougat are found in 3 Musketeers, Double Decker
Double Decker (chocolate bar)
Double Decker is a brand of chocolate bar currently manufactured by Cadbury. First introduced in 1976, its name derives from the double-decker bus....
, Mars
Mars Bar
Mars is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars, Incorporated. It was first manufactured in Slough, Berkshire in the United Kingdom in 1932 as a sweeter version of the US Milky Way bar which Mars, Inc. produced...
, Snickers
Snickers
Snickers is a brand name chocolate bar made by Mars, Incorporated. It consists of peanut nougat topped with roasted peanuts and caramel, enrobed in milk chocolate. Snickers has annual global sales of $2 billion....
, Milky Way, Toblerone
Toblerone
Toblerone is a chocolate bar brand owned by Kraft Foods, who acquired the product from former owner Jacobs Suchard in 1990. It is well-known for its distinctive packaging, its prism shape and its ubiquity in duty-free shops.The triangular shape of the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps is commonly...
, ZERO bar
ZERO bar
The ZERO candy bar, introduced in 1920, is a candy bar composed of a combination of caramel, peanut and almond nougat covered with a layer of white fudge...
s, Salted Nut Roll
Salted Nut Roll
Pearson's Salted Nut Roll is a candy made by the Pearson's Candy Company of Saint Paul, Minnesota and is available in the Midwestern United States. It has a nougat center that is surrounded in a layer of caramel and then covered with salted Virginia peanuts...
s, Reese's Fast Break
Reese's Fast Break
Reese's Fast Break is a candy bar similar to the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. It is coated with milk chocolate, and filled with peanut butter on top of a nougat layer. While the bar initially had a blue and orange wrapper, the color scheme has since been inverted. Later formulations of Fast Break...
, Reese's Whipps
Reese's Whipps
Reese's Whipps is a candy bar similar to the 3 Musketeers but differs by adding peanut butter. It has a center made of fluffy peanut butter nougat, a layer of peanut butter and is then coated with milk chocolate...
, and Baby Ruth
Baby Ruth
Baby Ruth is an American candy bar made of peanuts, caramel and chocolate-flavored nougat covered in chocolate.In 1921, the Curtiss Candy Company refashioned its Kandy Kake into the Baby Ruth. The bar was a staple of the Chicago-based company for some seven decades. Curtiss was purchased by Nabisco...
bars.
In Britain nougat, occasionally pronounced 'nugget', is traditionally made in imitation of the southern European varieties and is still commonly found at fairground
Fairground
Fairground most typically refers to a permanent space that hosts fairs, such as:* Funfair* State fair* Agricultural showFairground may also refer to:* "Fairground"...
s and the seaside
Seaside resort
A seaside resort is a resort, or resort town, located on the coast. Where a beach is the primary focus for tourists, it may be called a beach resort.- Overview :...
. The most common industrially produced type is coloured pink and white, the pink often fruit flavoured, and sometimes wrapped in edible rice paper with almonds and cherries, sometimes substituted for peanuts, or omitted altogether.
Nougat is also enjoyed in Australasia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
and the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
, where it is sold as a gourmet confection. Golden Boronia, Mondo Nougat(which also distributes its off-cuts through its subsidiary company "the Margaret River Nougat Company) and Flying Swan are the most widely known manufacturers in Australasia specializing in the production of European style nougat all year round as opposed to the many European manufacturers which treat the product as a seasonal specialty. The popularity of nougat in Australasia has primarily been driven by the Australian manufacturers as well as some imported varieties from South Africa and Europe.
Variations
Spanish turrónTurrón
Turrón , torró , or torrone , or nougat is a confection, typically made of honey, sugar, and egg white, with toasted almonds or other nuts, and usually shaped into either a rectangular tablet or a round cake. It is frequently consumed as a traditional Christmas dessert in Spain and Italy. There are...
follows the traditional recipes with toasted almond
Almond
The almond , is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree...
s, sugar, honey, and egg whites.
Torrone from Italy includes these same basic ingredients as well as vanilla or citrus flavoring, and is often sandwiched between two very thin sheets of rice paper. In the Venetian
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
town of Cologna Veneta
Cologna Veneta
Cologna Veneta is a comune in the Province of Verona in the Italian region Veneto, located about 70 km west of Venice and about 35 km southeast of Verona...
is produced mandorlato, always based on honey, sugar, egg whites and almonds (mandorle in Italian) but with a different taste and harder to bite than torrone.
Australian nougat is produced by a similar method to French and Italian nougat but usually has a 50% almonds, it can contain Macadamia
Macadamia
Macadamia is a genus of nine species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, with a disjunct distribution native to eastern Australia , New Caledonia and Sulawesi in Indonesia ....
nuts, apricots, or other texture modifiers. The nougat is commonly produced in two varieties: soft and crunchy. During candy making, this is done by heating a sugar solution to different temperatures before folding in egg whites and honey.
"Wiener (Viennese) Nougat", or, in German, "Schmelz-Schokolade" (molten chocolate) is a variant which contains only sugar, cocoa butter, almonds, and cocoa mass, and has a mellow consistency. In Germany, gianduja
Gianduja (chocolate)
Gianduja is a sweet chocolate containing about 30% hazelnut paste, invented in Turin by Caffarel in 1852. It takes its name from Gianduja, a Carnival and marionette character who represents the archetypal Piedmontese, a native of the Italian region where hazelnut confectionery is common.Some...
is traditionally called nougat.
Persian nougat, known as Gaz
Gaz (candy)
Gaz is the traditional name of Persian nougat originating from the city of Esfahan, located in the central plateau of Iran.The name gaz is associated with gaz-angebin which translates to "sap of angebin"; a desert plant member of the Tamarisk family and native to the Zagros mountain range located...
, is a variety that has been produced in Isfahan, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
for many centuries by various manufacturers including Ashrafi Gaz, Kermani Gaz, Shirin Gaz, Sekkeh Gaz and others. Gaz can also contain the sugary extract of the root of Tamarix
Tamarix
The genus Tamarix is composed of about 50-60 species of flowering plants in the family Tamaricaceae, native to drier areas of Eurasia and Africa...
.
A special kind of Gaz is referred to as Nogha (نوقا) in Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
derived from the word Nougat and made mainly in the Turkish regions of Iran. Nogha is almost exclusively made with walnuts instead of pistachios and almonds which are usual for other types of Gaz. The making of Nogha is very much the same as any other Gaz. The difference is that Nogha is usually spread between two very thin layers of wafers and cut into 10x5x5cm sections which are larger than ordinary Gaz cubes.
There are three types of African nougat, or nougati, ranging from the white kurtzati to the black baxtiti, and mainly containing fruits rather than nuts. The higher fruit-to-nut ratio can be most prominent in the brown simchati nougat variety.