I like the soft and mellow Italian nougat. Most of the time, I can only find hard nougat and so I decided to try to make it myself. It’s not too bad for desserts either, because it starts with egg white and includes nuts and dried fruit. There is quite a bit of sugar and honey, but I reduced the amount a bit and now I can have this special treat without too much guilt. Feel free to make it your own by adding chocolate, dried fruit or even citrus peels. I tried it with chocolate and it melted, swirled cool and was really good. Let me know what you try.

You are supposed to use edible rice paper on both sides of this sticky treat. If you plan to wrap the nougat and give it to friends or store it for a while, it would be wise to get some. I just used parchment paper sprayed with cooking spray and for serving in our house, it was more than fine.

To make a good nougat, you really have to have a plan. You have to be very focused. And (!), consider yourself warned, there will be a few minutes when you won’t be able to answer the front door, or even look at your phone – boiling sugar is no joke. I’ll show you how to make a soft, cloud-like vanilla nougat candy. Because if you have to eat sweets from time to time, you might as well make them yourself. You should read the whole recipe before you start, to get an idea of the direction you are going to take. You will also need a candy thermometer.

Let’s go to the recipe

To the base of nougat, one can add all kinds of flavors and spices. You can also add as many seeds, nuts and dried fruits as the nougat contains. The version you see on the picture contains a vanilla bean, saffron streaks and a mixture of nuts and seeds. The video version is slightly different. Part of the fun is to experiment with all the different ingredients you can add. One of the most memorable is lavender, with tons of roasted white and black sesame seeds.

Nougat :
2 tablespoons of butter
2 bags of mini-marshmallows (250g per bag)
2 bags of white chocolate chips (225g per bag)
2 cups of Gumdrops

DIRECTIONS

Melt the first 3 ingredients together until the mixture is smooth.

Stir in the gum drops.
Spread on parchment paper in a 9×13 pan.
Refrigerate overnight.
Cut into squares.
**Can be stored in the freezer.