Mmmmm ... nougat!

Recently a former colleague, Zefan, got married. He and his new wife Lei handed out celebratory bags of home made nougat, and it was delicious! I couldn't resist asking for the recipe. I'd been tempted to try making nougat before but had always felt intimidated by the complexity of the recipes found. Mentions of egg whites and glucose syrup and candy thermometers and 'small crack stage' made me wary. So I was surprised and delighted when Zefan and Lei's recipe involved none of these things. They kindly translated the recipe from Chinese for me and this morning I made a test batch.

35 grams unsalted butter
160 grams marshmallows
100 grams full cream milk powder
150 grams nuts, cooked (and/or dried fruit, as preferred; I used pistachios)
non-stick pan
silicone pan slice

Melt the butter in the pan over low heat and spread the butter all over the pan. Add marshmallows and stir with silicone slice, keeping heat low. When the marshmallows are almost melted, stir the milk powder through and mix thoroughly. Add the nuts and/or fruit and mix again. Pour into moulds (I used a silicone baking dish) and cool in the fridge. Cut when cold. You could wrap pieces in edible rice paper to make them easier to handle.

A couple of extra tips from Zefan and Lei:
– You can vary the softness of the nougat by using more butter (for a softer consistency) or more milk powder (for a harder consistency).
– Extra flavourings such as cocoa powder, coffee powder or matcha (green tea powder) may be added at the same time as the milk powder.

Melting marshmallows is squishy fun

As you can probably guess from all the mentions of 'non-stick' and 'silicone', above, the mixture quickly becomes very sticky when you add the milk powder. I'm tempted to try making it using a microwave one day, rather than a stove. Will blog about it if I do ...

This recipe is less sweet than many commercial nougats, which is nice. Thank you, Zefan and Lei, and congratulations!