Nougat

Instructions

1. This is a preparation of barley-sugar and almonds, filberts, or pistachio-nuts, of which good confectioners both foreign and English make a great variety of highly ornamental dishes; the directions here are for the most common and simple mode of serving it.
2. Blanch twelve ounces of fine Jordan almonds in the usual way, wipe them very dry, split them in halves, and spread them upon tins or dishes.
3. Dry them in a very gentle oven without allowing them to brown; or, if the flavour be liked better so, let them be equally coloured to a pale gold tint. They should then be often turned while in the oven.
4. Boil six ounces of highly-refined sugar to barley sugar in a small preserving-pan.
5. Throw in the almonds and mix them with it well without breaking them.
6. Turn the nougat on to a dish slightly rubbed with oil, spread it out quickly, mark it into squares, and cut it before it is cold; or pour it into a mould, and with an oiled lemon spread it quickly and very thin over it, and turn it out when cool.
7. Preserve it carefully from damp at all times, and put it into a dry tin box as soon as it is cold.
8. Proportions: sugar, 6 oz.; almonds, 12 oz.
9. Another and more expeditious way of making it: boil the sugar to caramel without any water, as directed at page 563. The proportion of almonds can be diminished at pleasure, but the nougat should always be well filled with them.