At Maes HONEY we know that winter is approaching, when our range of flower honey can be an ideal ingredient to make nougat.
Topping the list of the most appreciated sweets of the Christmas season, nougat uses honey as one of its base ingredients. It achieves, thanks to it, a soft and honeyed texture and an incomparable flavor.
From Maes Honey, we have Cube Bonapi Honey, the most appropriate option to achieve the best nougat.
Honey: key element of nougat
Honey is the base of any type of nougat. Both the hard nougat (or from Alicante) and the soft nougat (or from Jijona) are made with honey as the main ingredient. In fact, the Technical Sanitary Regulations describe nougat as a dough obtained by cooking honey and sugar, with or without egg white or albumin, with subsequent incorporation and kneading of toasted, peeled or skin-on almonds.
In both variants of nougat, the order of the ingredients is very similar. Although due to the manufacturing process, their results are notably different, both nougats base their recipe on the following steps.
- Heat the honey
- Mix with sugar and egg white
- Add the peeled and toasted almonds
Other varieties of nougat that can be made with honey are:
Almond and honey guirlache
- 150 gr almonds
- 300 gr sugar
- juice of half a lemon
- 2 tablespoons of flower honey
Chocolate nougat with peanuts and honey
- 1 tablet of pure chocolate
- Peanuts smeared with flower honey
- 3 eggs
Honey and almond nougat
- 1 kg of peeled almonds
- ½ kg of flower honey
- Lemon zest
- 8 g ground cinnamon
Chocolate nougat, tangerines and honey
- 250 gr pure chocolate
- 200 gr sugar
- 150 gr raw almonds
- 150 gr candied orange
- 2 tablespoons flower honey
The tradition of nougat with honey
The making of this sweet associated with the Christmas season is by no means a recent custom. Historians estimate that the first precursors of nougat date back to the times of Ancient Greece. We cannot exactly define this sweet that the Greeks made as nougat, but it is very similar. Composed of honey, almonds, and other nuts, it was designed to increase the energy and endurance of athletes.
It would be the Muslims who would approach their confectionery and the ingredients that make it up when they occupied the Iberian Peninsula. Its culinary tradition was made up of sweets made with honey and nuts, establishing these beginnings of nougat in our country.
Another possible origin dates back to the voyages of merchants from the Arabian Peninsula. Supposedly, these would have spread the nougat throughout the Mediterranean countries, as would happen with Spain.
In one way or another, the tradition of nougat as a sweet made with honey and almonds dates back to approximately the 15th century, its epicenter being the southern area of what was then the Kingdom of Valencia. This location today corresponds to the province of Alicante.
Cube Bonapi honey and nougat
Bonapi Honey is one of the variants made at Maes Honey. This is obtained from the pollen collected by bees from flowers. The honeys that are obtained are, therefore, varied products in their composition, being able to find the nectar of one or several flowers. Both variants are excellent ingredients for nougat, giving our sweet different nuances depending on the honey chosen.
In the development of any of these honeys, the influence of the climate is fundamental. Obtaining the right conditions is essential to be able to harvest honey successfully.
From Maes Honey, we invite you to try making your own nougat with our Bonapi honey. By making this sweet you can find a new way to enjoy the exquisite Maes Honey products.
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