How to make Soft Nougat or Homemade Marshmallow Fluff

I recently came up with an idea for a cupcake which I will share with you soon, which needed nougat in the middle. I decided that the kind of nougat you buy in bars would be too hard, so wondered if there was such a thing as soft nougat. Luckily there is, it’s not that hard to make and it tastes delicious on its own as well! In fact it reminded me a lot of marshmallow fluff both in terms of flavour and texture so I think I can get away with calling it either soft nougat or marshmallow fluff.

I found this recipe on Craftsy.com which was relatively easyto do; though you do need a sugar thermometer and to be very precise. It's also pretty helpful if you have a stand mixer like a Kitchenaid.

I substituted golden syrup for the light corn syrup as you can't get that in the UK (or not easily). Other than that I followed the steps in this recipe so this blog post is more to point you in the direction of that recipe, and show you how mine looked at each stage. And as I mentioned I will refer back to this post when I write about my amazing cupcakes!

Sugar, golden syrup and water in the saucepan

My brilliant digital thermometer, which I reviewed in this post about making marshmallows. In fact the technique for making nougat is quite similar.

Testing the temperature of the sugar

Beating the egg whites in my trusty Kitchenaid

 

After the sugar is added the mixture thickens

 

I lined a small square pan with clingfilm (trust me - you will never get it out the pan otherwise!) and put it in the fridge to set. It never set really hard like the bars of nougat you can buy - and it wasn't even as firm as the nougat you get in a chocolate bar like Mars. Instead it was more like a thicker, stickier marshmallow fluff. It tasted amazing and I kept eating spoonfuls straight from the fridge, but I did save enough of it to use it in the recipe I had made it for!