Everyone, I’m so excited! My friend Charlotte is visiting!! She’s in London, ya’ll. She’s the first friend to visit us this year. I’ve taken two days off of work and am so excited to catch up and do some site seeing with her and her husband Craig. I’m going to visit places I haven’t seen before, revisit some old favorites, and hopefully have lots of new stories to share in future Tourist Tuesday posts. So, as you might be able to tell, I’m really excited to have a long weekend off here in London. To celebrate her arrival, I wanted to make something delicious – and I knew Malted Chocolate Nougat would be just the recipe to try. 

Once upon a time Charlotte lived in the UK, and before I moved here she gave me some advice and most importantly, recommendations about foods to try. She recommended Hula Hoops, which are a sort of crazy shaped potato snack. And she recommended Maltesers, which are spherical sweets with a malted honeycomb center and a chocolate cover (sort of like a Whopper, but these are better). Maltesers are the snack I sometimes buy for lunch, they are the treat I send to Charlotte, and they are overall flipping delicious.

And today’s recipe prominently features Maltesers and therefore is the perfect treat to welcome Charlotte to London. If you don’t have Maltesers, use Whoppers or whatever candy equivalent you have. I got this recipe from Sweets Made Simple, a cookbook that not only has interesting recipes for candy (like lime & chili kisses and maple bacon lolly pops) but also for things like fruit leather. The book also makes me believe I can do difficult/scary things like make my own caramel and pour hot sugar syrup without burning myself.

What I’ve learned from this book is that making sweets takes precision – so you are pretty much required to get a candy thermometer. If that puts you off, don’t let it because you can buy one from Amazon for less than a tenner. Also, making sweets can take attention. For a recipe like this you have to be nearby watching to make sure the sugar doesn’t burn and the eggs don’t become over beaten. Finally a stand mixer or a lovely assistant is going to make this recipe less stressful. The mixer needs to be running sometimes while you’re doing something else. Sure, you might be able to keep one eye on the stove and one eye on the mixer, but when you have to work fast that can lead to frustration, mess, and burnt food.

So, this is not a beginner recipe as it requires some kit and some comfort in the kitchen, but it is worth doing. The actual “work” part takes less than 30 minutes and in the end you will have delicious, fluffy, sticky nougat. It’s delicious and sweet, although it does feel like maybe you should visit the dentist afterward.  Partway through making it, this will smell like the most perfect fresh marshmallows, which is wonderful, but in the end it’s denser and chocolatey like nougat. In short, it tastes like malted chocolate but has the texture of the inside of the Three Musketeers bar. With a sprinkling of Maltesers on top, it’s got the perfect amount of crunch.  Sounds glorious, no?

Recipe from Sweets Made Simple cookbook.

Messy level: Technically you don’t use that many dishes so it’s not that messy. However, this is the most important tip I can give you – clean your sugar pan AS SOON AS YOU FINISH, literally while it is still hot. If you let that sugar cool it will be rock hard and stuck. I have one tiny dot of hardened sugar on my mixer and I cannot scrape it off. If you do wait to clean, just put a little water in your pans and then heat them really hot to melt the sugar again. Seriously though, save yourself the work and try to scrape out and clean your sugar pans quickly.

Malted Chocolate Nougat

 

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Prep time

8 hours

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

8 hours 30 mins

 

Serves: 16

Ingredients

• vegetable oil
• 400g/14oz/ 2 cups sugar
• 100ml/3½ fl oz/ ¼ cup clear honey
• 210 ml/7oz/ ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons liquid glucose
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 large egg whites, at room temperature
• 50g/2oz dark chocolate, melted and cooled
• 40g/1½ oz/3.5 tablespoons chocolate malt powder
• pinch salt
• 75g/3oz/a big handful of chocolate-coated honeycomb balls like Maltesers or Whoppers

Instructions

1. Prep notes: Before you get started, measure out the egg whites and let them come to room temperature (about 15-20 minutes before starting the rest). Also if you're using a chocolate bar and need to melt it, do this first. Cut the chocolate bar in little pieces. Put in a bowl. Microwave for 20 seconds, stir and continue this until you have completely melted chocolate. Set aside to cool down.
2. Line a 8x8" square tin with tin foil. Lightly brush the bottom with vegetable oil. Then line the bottom with a square of rice or parchment paper.
3. In a large heavy bottomed pan, stir together the sugar, honey, liquid glucose, and cold water. Heat on a medium-low heat to dissolve the sugar.
4. Once the sugar is dissolve put your candy thermometer in the pan. Bring the sugar mixture to boil and allow to bubble until the temperature reaches 125°C/257°F.
5. Meanwhile, while you're waiting for the sugar to come to temperature, put your egg whites in the bowl of a mixer. Turn the mixer on medium-high and whisk until stiff peaks form. Be careful not to over beat. If you don't know what stiff peaks looks like, check out these pictures.
6. When the sugar syrup comes to temperature you will have to work quickly. Make sure the mixer is now on low. Take the thermometer out of the pan. Pour half of the sugar syrup from the pan into the egg whites. (This is when it will smell nice)
7. Keep the mixer running and let the egg whites and sugar syrup continue to mix.
8. Return the pan with half the sugar syrup back to the stove. Heat the syrup until it reaches 157°C/315°F. The syrup will become a dark caramel color.
9. Once it come to temperature, slowly pour it into the stand mixer. It will foam up a bit. Turn the mixer up to medium and mix everything for a few minutes (about 3-4 minutes). The mixture will thin down a bit.
10. Now add in the melted chocolate, malt powder, and salt. Mix until incorporated and everything is a nice light brown.
11. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Scatter half of your honeycomb balls over the top. Cut the other half, into halves and press those in around the full honeycomb balls.
12. Cool and leave to set overnight. Have some for breakfast because you deserve it.

3.3.3070

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Fruit leather also makes me feel a little nostalgic for back to school and my colleagues at Live It Learn It who are back in the US. My coworker Erica and I were a little crazy for fruit leather at the end of last school year. It was our snack of choice during the many meetings we were having. She’d have a big stash in her backpack and I’d peak through and pull out my favorite flavors. Snacks are always a nice way to pep up the workday. 

But I almost never buy fruit leather because it’s usually expensive. It’s like $2 for four inches of dried fruit that I can eat in one second. With this recipe I made a 10.5×15.5″ baking sheet sized piece for less than £3 (about $5)! I’ll be honest it is way easier to buy it at the store. This is so easy to make and takes almost no hands-on time, but it takes forever – and I could still eat this whole tray in one second. However here are three reasons why I like this recipe:

1. I really like making things that I previously thought only came from the store. It makes me feel accomplished that I’m capable of DIY-ing something that seemed like a mystery.

2. It’s cheap! Seriously £3!!! The plums were £2, the lemon was 50p, and I don’t know what 3 tbsp of sugar costs, but you could swipe it from your local coffee shop if you wanted to.

3. Every ingredient in this recipe is normal and familiar and pretty healthy. It’s sort of nice to have a yummy and healthy snack where you can pronounce all the ingredients.

If you’re not into plums, you can do this recipe with any sort of stone fruit. But I do recommend the plums. They are so flavorful and the lemon makes it nice and tart. I also wholeheartedly believe you can do this with any kind of fruit if you just follow the pattern of the recipe.

Adapted from Sweets Made Simple.

Ingredients:

6-8 plums (I used 8 because mine were small)

200ml water (that’s .84 of a cup)

juice from 1/2 lemon

3 tbsp sugar

Directions:

1. Remove the pit from the plums. (TV tip: cut the plum perpendicular to the ridge and twist to remove the stone).

2. Roughly chop the plum flesh.

3. Put the plums and water in a saucepan. Heat on medium, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes. It will turn a beautiful color!

4. Add the sugar and lemon juice. Take a potato masher and squash everything in the pot.

5. Heat for 10 more minutes.

6. If you have an immersion blender, mix up the fruit in the pot. If you don’t have an immersion blender, transfer the fruit to a blender and mix it until it is a smooth puree.

7. Cover a baking tray with plastic wrap. (Check that it is microwave safe). I know it seems weird to do this but I promise it will be ok.

8. Preheat the oven to it’s lowest setting. For me it was 50°. Maybe for you 130-140°.

9. Slowly pour the fruit puree onto the baking sheet. Use a silicon spatula and spread the mixture evenly on the tray. If you don’t have a rimmed sheet don’t worry, the mixture doesn’t ooze and spread too much. Make sure the plastic wrap doesn’t fall back on the fruit puree – if it does that part won’t get dry and harden.

10. Heat in the oven for 10 hours. I know, that’s forever. Do it before you go to bed and in the morning it will be ready. Or, do it on a weekend when you’re home all day.

11. When it cools peel it off the plastic wrap. It’s a pretty stained glass piece of fruit leather!

12. Put it on a cutting board. Cut it up how you like! You could do it in strips, roll it into bundles, cut it into shapes with a cutter, or roll it with parchment and store in an air tight container.

Messy level: I would say 1 spoon if you have an immersion blender, two spoons if you don’t. It’s easy, simple, and doesn’t make much of a mess.;

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