What is nougat, and why is it in every candy bar?

what even is nougat and why is it in so many things it's a primary component in nearly every candy bar up there with caramel chocolate nuts but I know what those things are wTF is nougat basically it's an air aerated confection where the air is stabilized but some kind of protein and the continuous phase is basically a sugar cereal as dr. Richard härtel professor of food engineering at the University of wisconsin-madison and continuous phase in this context basically just means the main structure of the thing in chocolate the continuous phase is fat cocoa butter a web of fat molecules with little bits of cocoa solids and sugars hanging inside that web those are the dispersed phases and nougat the dispersed phases air and the continuous phase which holds that air is sugar matrix and within that there's a web of proteins surrounding the air bubbles the protein is what makes this whipped sugar syrup stable solid and stretchy or bouncy so that makes sense but here's the thing an aerated sugar syrup stabilized with protein describes a lot of different confections not just nougat but meringue marshmallow a popular one here in the American South called divinity what makes a nougat different well dr. Hart L says it comes down to four big variables of the air content the water content the kind of sugar being used and the kind of protein being used we'll work ourselves back through that list nougat is usually made with egg and sometimes soy protein marshmallow often has some of those as well but it usually also has gelatin which is a protein boiled out of animal parts and gelatin has a texture when its surrounding air bubbles like that that's a real squishy elastic texture so you push down on a jet puff Marshmallow it bounces back if you push down on a nougat generally it stays where he left it because you've broken that structures okay but why right why is gelatin bouncy it's the nature of the Junction's or whom says they former jail it's just a series of amino acids like any protein is but it's secondary tertiary structure or such that when it forms a gel it forms these really complicated Gila C's at the junction zones and those are like Springs have some elasticity - in contrast albumin and globulin form much simpler networks that just don't do that and albumin and globulin are the proteins in eggs and soy respectively and it's usually eggs being used in nougat but albumin is also the protein used in this stuff marshmallow fluff is not gelatin in this just eggs why is this marshmallow and not nougat well I think we need to see some nougat being made let us Don our mr. Rogers cardigans and our hair nets and get a little factory tour this is crown candy a mid-sized confectionary where I live in Macon Georgia that has been operating for literally a hundred years they make old timey nostalgia type candies under various brand names yes that's nougat for their log rolls it's so sticky that they can't handle it with gloves they're constantly dipping their hands and sanitized water as they work in the vice president of production here at crown candy is my buddy Jamie Weatherford the liquids will go up top in the kettle the solids will be in the bottom kettle they get pre-mixed and then you cook your liquid to a particular temperature remove any moisture to the amount that you want and then you drop it into your solids and mix it up the stuff in the lower bowl is basically what you would mix together here in the kitchen to get a meringue going whipped egg whites with some sugar to stabilize the bubbles in the factory they're combining water with some dried egg albumen a combination of different sugars like fructose and corn syrup and this stuff wrap our frappe it's a pre whipped sugar and egg mixture that they used to kind of get the aeration process started all that gets fluffed up and then the hot syrup comes down and gets whipped in gradually this slowly cooks the nougat we're bringing it over here onto this table that would give them an opportunity to cool and then we place them in an extruder and then we have a guillotine that comes in and breaks the log it comes out with a one string and then it breaks it brutal you might say let them eat nougat in this case new get coated in caramel and nuts lovely then the logs go into a climate-controlled room to cure or dry out for a little bit and this gets us to the second of the four big variables that make a nougat nougat and not something else and that is water content it's pretty intuitive the more water a confection has the softer it's generally gonna be hence marshmallow fluff or in this case Italian meringue which is just homemade marshmallow fluff again there's no gelatin in this it's just hot syrup drizzled into an egg foam just like nougat so why don't we call it nougat well I think it's just because as way more water in candy making the way that you control the water content is by boiling your syrup up to a certain temperature syrup physically can't reach certain temperatures until it's boiled off a certain amount of its water that's why it doesn't really matter how much water you put into your sugar when you start because you're gonna boil it out until you hit your target temperature which for Italian meringue is about 240 fahrenheit 115 C that's low as candy-making goes so there's still a lot of water left in here which is why the resulting product is soft and spreadable I think the softer bouncy or texture of this reminds people more of marshmallow than of nougat so that's why some people including myself call it marshmallow even though it has no gelatin when they make nougat at Crown candy they boil it up to 270 Fahrenheit or 132 C that's pretty hot as far as these things go so the resulting product is much more firm indeed the texture of a confection is so sensitive to tiny variations in water content that Jamie literally has to check the weather before he comes to work every day sugar is hydroscopic meaning it'll kind of suck water straight out of the air and it gets super sloppy down here in Macon Georgia for instance if I know it's gonna be a bright sunshiny summer day I may cook our log centers to 269 degrees but if I know it's gonna be a very humid kind of muggy summer week I may increase the temperature to 272 he's got to cook more water off to account for the water the candy is gonna suck in from the air water content also explains why say a meringue cookie is not nougat it's baked in the oven until virtually all the water is driven out of the outer crust making it crunchy instead of fluffy or chewy water content is also the main difference between nougat and divinity which is a classic southern grandma treat the Seerat for divinity is cooked to more like 250 Fahrenheit 120 C so there's more water and it's a softer product so that all explains why nougat is not other things but why is nougat not like nougat this is nougat this is nougat and this is nougat totally different textures all nougat we shall find out why that is the case right after I thank the sponsor of this video hello fresh America's number one meal kits lordy I need some vegetables after eating all that sugar so I'm gonna go with the vegetarian meal plan this time hello fresh has meaty meal plans too of course but even though I do eat meat I have found the veggie plan really helps me to think more creatively about plant-based meals and these are totally delicious and satisfying I'm trying to eat less meat hello fresh spares you the stress of meal planning and going out to the store everything arrives pre-portioned and that proportioning minimizes food waste which makes this surprisingly environmentally-friendly the packaging - is almost entirely recycled or recyclable and the plans are flexible you decide you want to get back on the meat train you can you decide you want to skip a week's delivery you can whenever you want it's easy use my code Adam ragout see a 60 to get 60 dollars off your first three weeks including free shipping on your first box with purchase go to hello fresh com to redeem and for more details $60 off with Adam or goosey a 60 that's all down in the description thank you hello fresh now how are both of these products considered a nougat when they're so radically different from each other well dr. hotel says it comes down to the third of the four variables we're discussing which is the kind of sugar being used and the state of the sugar the sugar and a three musketeers for example is partially crystalline so when you break three musketeers and pull it apart the nougat breaks clean whereas if you tried to pull a chewy nougat and a good example of a chewy nougat in the US is in Charleston chew and if you were to pull out apart you would get a longer stretch so the sugar crystals actually break up the sugar and stretchiness of that sure syrup and give it a very different mouthfeel so it Charleston chew chew and you chew and you choose toons good movie and how do candy makers achieve this by changing the ratio of the sugars usually cane sugar and corn syrup some fancy candies use honey instead of corn syrup because honey is way more expensive but on the molecular level the concept is the same sucrose versus some other kind of sugar glucose for example the corn syrup can have lots of different kinds of sugar in it what matters this is not sucrose corn syrup is what they amusingly call a doctor in the candy making industry a doctoring agent inhibits the formation of sugar crystals it's a molecule that gets in between the sucrose molecules and prevents them from linking up and forming a solid a crystal the more crystallized the nougat is the more brittle or short the texture is the fewer crystals you have the chewy air it is candy makers of course try to keep their recipes as secret as possible but here in the states the law says they have to list their ingredients in order of proportionality so we can tell from the label that the three musketeers has more sugar than corn syrup while the Charleston chew has more corn syrup than sugar which is exactly what we'd expect going by their textures marshmallow fluff has more corn syrup than you'd see in a typical homemade Italian meringue recipe I suspect this helps with shelf-life by inhibiting crystallization you can also stop a crystal from forming by inverting the sugar that is breaking sucrose down into a monosaccharide which can be done with heat or acid that's why some confection recipes call for cream of tartar to break down some of the sugars and inhibit crystallization also the size of the crystals matters a 3 Musketeers bar has lots of very small crystals in it dr. Hart L says one way to achieve this is by adding powdered sugar to nougat as what they'd call seed crystals so when we do that in the lab we pour the the last thing we add is the powdered sugar make sure it's uniformly mixed and then pour that onto a slab and if you taste it at then it's got a little bit of short texture to it but it's the next day then it becomes really short like a three musketeer as any elementary school science student can tell you it takes time for crystals to grow no the fourth and final thing that makes this different from this different from this is the amount of air that you whip in big difference between marshmallow which is a really low density somewhere down around point three point four for a jet puff Marshmallow versus anuya which is probably closer to 0.9 to one and so it's much much more dense and so you can also change the texture noumic by changing the aeration level air also helps to explain the mystery that you have probably been contemplating this entire time which is why is nougat in everything you know one of the kind of mantras of the food industry is that the more air you can so the more money you make mm-hmm air is free and nougat is full of air free bulk for your product it's not about you but when I was a kid you know and I have whatever quarter what was the candy bar that I wanted most that's biggest candy and so I always picked it three musketeers because it was the biggest thing I'm right there with you doc though this is still one of my favorite candy bars to this day I love that light fluffy texture so what have we learned here well I think it's that candy making is a lot like bread making bread is all just different combinations of some flour and some water and some yeast and some salt and through very subtle differences in the type of ingredient and the proportions and the process you get a world a whole universe of different breads it's kind of the same thing with confections subtle variations of protein sugar water and air give you a whole universe of different nougats for you to try get out there and get one that speaks to you [Applause] of the four big variables that make newt laugh

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 1,613,149

Rating: 4.9197297 out of 5

Keywords: nougat recipe, how to make nougat, candy bars, nougat candy recipe, how to make candy, candy bar, how to make nougat candy, chocolate bars, milk chocolate, make nougat, snickers recipe, how to make nougat with marshmallow fluff, marshmallow, marshmallow fluff, meringue, meringue cookies, italian meringue, divinity, divinity candy, 3 musketeers, charleston chew, crown candy

Id: IdWmulnsVQw

Length: 12min 8sec (728 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Wigoox]

FYI this video completely irrelevant for Europe.
Americans apparently make nougat without nuts.
Gotta cost optimize everything I guess.

[u/netherite_pickaxe]

this video is funny to me. a super technical and alien explanation of what i always considered (because of my culture) a traditional sweet

[u/[deleted]]

american nougat isn't even made from nuts?

this entire country truly is a lie

[u/doritosdustinthewind]

I love this guy, he's great at explaining his processes step by step and seems very passionate about food!

[u/sleepytoday]

This is the first time I’ve heard the ‘t’ at the end of nougat pronounced. Is this a particularly common pronunciation?

[u/jupiterkansas]

why does it take 12 minutes to tell us what nougat is ?

[u/Dr_Mrs_TheM0narch]

It’s not creamed pixies 🧚‍♂️?

[u/MasterDood]

I decided not to watch and keep it a mystery.

As a kid I thought it sounded like bugs, or something gross to me, but I kept eating it. Now it may as well be, and I like the notion that I enjoy something enough to not care what it’s made of.

[u/[deleted]]

You could probably succinctly answer this question in forty seconds