Torrone; troubles, tears, tantrums and triumph (well almost)

My sister always makes the most amazing torrone (hard Italian nougat) at Christmas. She was taught to make it and given the recipe from my brother-in-laws family who are all amazing cooks! I remeber one Christmas spent with them; it was a very enlightening culinary experience for a 15 year old from a small town to eat quail, rabbit and octopus at an Italian christmas...it still is one of the best meals I have eaten, over 10 years on! I know it is a bit of a cliche saying the secret ingredient was love but it may just have been! I am very jealous of my sister having access to her husband's lovely sisters and mother and being able to pick their brains and share their recipes!

Without further ado, here is the recipe for torrone! You will need a decent stand mixer and an electric knife for this. Do not even attempt it without!


Torrone

3 egg whites
1.5 cups sugar
500g honey
750g nuts (I used 500g blanched almonds and 250g pistachios)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 pkts wafers (plain ice cream wafers, not wafer cream biscuits or anything!)
Bowl of ice cubes

Beat egg whites until very stiff peaks form

Very very slowly add half the sugar with beater mixing (this should take around 10 minutes adding small amounts of sugar at a time)

Heat honey for about 1 minute in microwave so it's warm and runny. Add 3/4 jar really slowly to the egg white mix while beating (this should take around 15 minutes. I drizzled dessertspoonfuls slowly into the eggwhites)

Add rest of honey and sugar alternately (slowly again, over about 10 minutes)

Transfer to saucepan and cook for 1-1 1/2 hours on very low temperature stirring all the time ( I mean it, stir, stir stir) to stop it from catching and keep the nougat nice and white. After about an hour check every 5 minutes to see if it has reached the hard crack stage.

(NOTE: I actually made my torrone in my slow cooker and it took around 1 hr 45 minutes but I didn't have to stir it as much as if it was in a saucepan and the clean up was super easy. I probably only stirred it for about 30 sec every 2-3 minutes rather than using a saucepan where you literally stir it constantly. The slow cooker was my own briliant idea and I used it against the advice of my sister. My rationale is that everything is better in a slow cooker)

Meanwhile, toast the nuts. (I do this in the microwave)

Line a large baking dish/tray with gladbake and spray with cooking spray.

When it gets to the hard crack stage microwave all the nuts for 3-4 minutes until hot. Take the eggwhites off heat and mix nuts and vanilla in very quickly and pour into baking tray.

Smooth down nougat in baking tray then dip hands in ice cubes and dry them lightly and press down nougat until quite flat.

Press wafers onto top (if it doesn't fit they can be cut with kitchen scissors and they won't break).

Place cutting board/bread board on top then flip and peel off baking paper and press wafers onto other side. (place them the same direction top and bottom!!)

Neaten the edges and kind of push it all down and the edges in. Leave for 20mins-30mins then cut into pieces with electric knife. My sister said to cut halfway down between each wafer then flip and do the same on the other side but I was lazy and just went all the way through. You can choose to live dangerously or play by the rules.

Leave until completely cooled and then wrap in cellophane. Pat yourself on the back.


Here is my pictorial showing what happened....


Honey!

These are the kind of wafers you should buy.

Pistachios

Blanched almonds

The egg whites will get ridiculously thick and white and glossy while you are beating it

As you put it in the saucepan (or slowcooker) it will reduce in volume a little and become a little more liquid.

If you follow the directions the above shouldn't happen. I did two things wrong; I forgot to use cooking spray on the glad bake and I didn't use a cutting board when flipping, I just tried to flip it onto the bench where I had laid out more glad bake. Oops. This was about 2 hours into the operation.

I flipped out a little and called my sister and decided that I would scrape as much of the mix as I could off the wafers and glad bake and stick it into the microwave briefly to soften and try again.

Success! (ish) .

As you can see here and in the next photo it was a bit gappy as my nut/nougat ration went awry; all the nuts were salvadged but a lot of the nougat remained attached to the baking paper and the wafers.

Nearly there!

Here it is all sliced up ready to go, it doesn't look that bad, but when made properly (ie NOT by me!) it should look perfect!

Wrapped up a little messily (it was hard, I am not very dextrous) in Christmas colours!

I will try very hard to have another shot at this before christmas! Also, I intend to make rum balls, gingerbread, shortbread, fruit mince and mince pies and rocky road before christmas. I am toying with the idea of a Christmas cake, but I probably won't get aound to it!

Ciao bella! Bon Natale!