Super Fluffy Nougat Bars, and How Not to Temper Chocolate

Looking for a super sweet treat? Why not try your hand at the super fluffy nougat that you'd find in a Mars of Milky Way bar!

I won't lie: nougat isn't the easiest of sweets to make. It involves working with egg whites which are fragile and finicky, and working with boiling sugar syrup, which is also fragile and finicky. But the results are just like what you find in a nougat bar like a Snickers, and it's worth all the effort!

This is my first foray into making nougat, so it can only continue to improve! I actually wanted to learn how to make this kind of fluffy nougat so I could recreate on of my childhood classics, the strawberry Milky Way, which is no longer available in Ireland. So, watch this space for further nougat flavours!

But not only did I learn how to make this kind of nougat, but I finally started my journey with tempering chocolate, which went quite well. However, if you're going to try tempering chocolate, here are some little tips for you:

1. Don't temper chocolate in small batches! It should be done with at least 300 grammes (11 ounces) of chocolate.
2. Don't temper assorted chocolate! Stick to one kind of chocolate. Milk with milk, dark with dark, and white with white. The different chocolates need different tempering temperatures.

I used the Supervalu website directions on tempering, which worked perfectly well for me. I now just have to work out how to get rid of the streakiness, but that was probably caused by mixing chocolate.

INGREDIMENTS

2 cups (1 pound, 455 grammes) caster sugar

1 cup (12 ounces, 340 grammes) golden syrup, or golden corn syrup/glucose syrup

½ cup (4 fluid ounces, 120 millilitres) water

2 medium egg whites, room temperature

Up to ½ teaspoon salt, to taste

1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) vanilla essence

To coat
18 ounces (510 grammes) milk chocolate, tempered

METHOD

• Put the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer with whisk attachment, or into a large heatproof mixing bowl and use an electric hand whisk.
• In a medium saucepan, cook the sugar, syrup, and water, stirring as little as possible; you can swirl the pan, though. As soon as the mixture begins to boil, whip the whites to medium peaks. 
• Once the syrup reaches 120°C (248°F), take about a ¼ cup of the hot syrup and drizzle it into the whites while whipping to make a fluffy meringue with stiff peaks. Stop the mixer while you cook the rest of the syrup.
• Cook the remaining syrup up to 140°C (284°F), and then drizzle very, very, very slowly into the meringue while whipping. It'll go through some phases: first, it'll be like a big fluffy meringue, then it'll become something that is much stiffer, but still fluffy. Eventually, it'll be quite frosting-like. 
• Near the end of the whipping process, flavour the nougat with the vanilla and season with salt to taste.
• Once fully whipped, press into a 4 by 9 inch (10 by 23 centimetre) mould for thick sweets, or a 10 inch (23 centimetre) square mould for thin sweets, and set for at least 4 hours.
• Cut into fingers (I got about 16 thin sweets because I used a larger square mould, but the smaller mould will get 8 thick fingers), and dip in tempered chocolate.