Despite being an avid reader of the monthly food treat that is Bon Appétit Magazine, I don’t get around to making proper recipes from it as often as I really should. For me, it’s a publication of out and out food porn, and I also like to ‘keep in’ with what’s happening US-side in terms of ingredients and food trends. Compared to UK culinary trends, it’s always been ahead of the pack and in B.A. you’ll have read about heirloom tomatoes and chipotle chiles a good 10 years before they became commonly heard-of ingredients here in the UK. Besides, where else was I going to learn what on earth a pluot is?
The current Christmas issue has a special with sweets, cookies and cakes for (cheesy quote) ‘The Holiday Season’. My greedy little eye was immediately drawn to the recipe for pistachio and cherry nougat. My mum is a total nougat addict, and I hoped I’d be able to pull off a polished box of Christmas ‘candy’. I switched out the dried cherries for glacé, much more festive, and used up some of our Ardèche honey. If you’ve ever seen any of my cake recipes, you’ll know I love a pistachio to myself, so I had high hopes!
Thermometer, nuts, cherries, sugar and honey, edible wafer paper from Lakeland. If you’ve made Italian meringue before, this is a pretty easy recipe. The results weren’t 100% in that I couldn’t get the damned thing to harden without putting it in the freezer, so it would be able to be cut, but it’s still really tasty. If you like honey, you’ll love this. Some people have commented on the recipe’s page that it’s too sweet – well, I guess that’s a matter of taste!
The recipe can be found online here. Bon Appétit!
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