If you've read my post on the Torrone Tart, you already know that I've tried to make Torrone Candy in the past. In one case, I used careful 'Bain Marie' slow boiling methods and wanted to shoot myself because nothing ever got to the right temp. This yielded a tasty lava flow that never set up. In another attempt, everything required hand-mixing for 2 hours...you need friends for this...and wine. It didn't work because I got impatient and gave up at about 1 hour so I had another sticky gooey mess on my hands.
I had sworn off making this candy permanently....never ever again...and would have been happy with that decision until recently. After making that Torrone Tart cake in my blog (which is awesomely good), I found myself really not wanting to concede defeat on the candy. I wanted a hard piece of Torrone and it's not something you just pick up at the corner store in Nashville. Although I could order it on Amazon, the good stuff from Italy costs about $25 for less than a pound and there was no guarantee that it would be hard...just that soft smushy version. Sometimes, if I convince myself that I don't want to spend the money on something that isn't good for me, I can avoid it. Unfortunately, more often than not, I explore ways to make the same thing for a fraction the price. This eliminates one barrier and then any will power to avoid sweets for diet purposes disintegrates. It's a curse and a blessing to be Italian. If you like to cook and also like to eat, you need to somehow equalize the calories going in with the calories going out. Plus, you need to at least pretend that you're not consuming the wrong kinds of calories all the time. I prefer to think I have enough salad days to balance my robust cooking days. But even if I eat like a rabbit all week, I still need to exercise these days. So....now I just swim more laps and hit the yoga mat for a little longer each day so that I can continue to experiment with wonderful recipes that are disappearing from traditions.
My dad often told me that I was one of the most stubborn people he ever knew......but he also realized that I mimicked him so he always said it with a smile on his face and usually prefaced it with "Testa dura".....or 'hard head' in English. I don't think I ever saw him give up on any task. He could fix just about anything and was a master craftsman in the tile, terrazzo and marble trade. His version of success could sometimes be comical. When it came to fixing things like toys, which would get busted up regularly with 5 kids, he would eventually get them to work but they wouldn't be pretty. My brother still has a mechanical wind up toy that is put together with black electrician's tape and odds and ends in my dad's workshop. It was so ugly, that my brother kept it. He also fixed a favorite stuffed animal monkey that was leaking stuffing out of the side of his head after losing an ear in a tug of war. Dad got white medical tape and wrapped the monkey's head like a wounded warrior. His perfectionism for some things was tempered with a good dose of being practical for others. He knew that those toys, or others, would be back on his workbench routinely so once he found a temporary solution, it was good enough.
With stubbornness as a backdrop to this story, I decided to prowl in my pantry to see if I had what it would take to try making Torrone again. I had honey. It was far from good quality...which really makes a difference according to the pros. A nice mild light colored clover honey would be much better. I had a relatively cheap non-clover version from Costco that was very dark. They sell them as a 3 pack in those plastic bear bottles. It's good enough for adding to salad dressings or for a few tablespoons here and there but not something that you find yourself going to for a honey fix....and certainly inferior in a candy that features honey. Nevertheless, I justified using it on this project to see if I could get the technique correct. I also had the edible paper. You buy these papers in 100 sheet bulk so I had about 90 sheets left and was surprised that I had only used 10 sheets until I realized how much candy you can produce with 10 sheets. Fortunately, potato paper doesn't go bad and was just as dry as it was when I packed it away. I always have almonds, at least 3-5 pounds in my freezer. Once I confirmed I had the ingredients, I needed to see if I could actually find a recipe. I searched and researched methods and ingredients. Almost every single practical home recipe is for a soft version...on the verge of what I would call a flop. Other versions that claimed to get hard had no honey...in a honey nougat candy! The tried and true Italian commercial versions required professional kitchens and offered no guidance on the quantities for the recipe. Like a good detective, I just kept looking into details and ultimately hit on a video that was produced in a large commercial kitchen. The recipe made 70 pounds of Torrone at a time. It looked promising so I did some math and combined a few techniques to see if I could get this candy to cooperate in a home kitchen. I took the recipe down to a more realistic 7 pounds of product. In the end, 7 pounds fills up an 11 x 14 pan so it's not a completely decadent amount of candy by my standards. It's just concrete level heavy so a small volume weighs a lot. I settled on 7 pounds and figured I could definitely hold some of it for Christmas.....if it lasted that long.
Here's the conclusion on the end product:
I'm in Torrone heaven. I'm not going to lie, the honey should have been higher quality but I made the decision to experiment with a cheaper version so it has a stronger flavor....and it's darker. Using higher quality honey will definitely make it taste milder but I'm not particularly opposed to using that honey bear honey again. I also had to really fiddle around with pans as I was prepping the honey. This was a goof on my part that was due to the fact that I had forgotten how candy 'swells' when it boils. Those bubbles of sugar don't evaporate. A cup of liquid can produce a 5 quart mass of bubbles. As a result, I started and stopped the boiling process more often than necessary to keep moving the liquid to larger pans...what a mess that was. This might have also contributed to a slightly darker taste and color since it took longer to reach the desired temperature. In spite of that, this candy is doggone good. It's hard...You need a sturdy knife and potentially a hammer to break it up. I didn't go to the full 'hard crack' stage for candy making. I was somewhere between soft crack and hard crack.
I guessed on the quantities I used for the Vanilla, Lemon and Almond extracts because there wasn't any real guidance on this. I didn't factor in that I was adding extracts to REALLY HOT nougat. I think that contributes to diluting the flavor by burning it off quickly. It was so subtle in the final candy that I tripled the amount when I wrote out the recipe in this blog to remind me to add more extract in the future. The candy can handle more flavor...but it was still good with very subtle flavor. Maybe more lemon will balance the darker honey....guessing.
I'm really proud of this torrone recipe.... because I don't have much candy making experience. You don't have to fuss with bain maries and you can just watch a thermometer or a timer. It's that easy. Having the advantage of a KitchenAid, eliminated the need for a squad of kitchen helpers and avoided elbow and shoulder injuries. When you can adapt a recipe with a modern tool...go for it!
Here's the adapted recipe....hope it works for you!
Ingredients
2 lbs (4 cups sugar)
2 lbs (3 cups honey)
6.5 Tablespoons of egg white (this was 3 egg whites from 'large' eggs)
1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract
2 teaspoons of lemon or orange extract
1/4 teaspoon of almond extract
3 lbs (12 cups) toasted almonds with skins (toast in oven until fragrant...10 minutes at 350)
Edible Rice paper or Edible Potato paper (you can easily find on Amazon)
- Prepare an 11x14 inch pan (I used a large roasting pan) by spraying it with a non-stick spray and then laying down a layer of parchment paper on the bottom and sides. The non-stick spray will help hold it in place. Put a layer of edible potato or rice paper on top of this and cut some smaller pieces to line the sides. You can overlap pieces and then snip off the excess later when you pull it out. The sides won't stay in place until you actually pour in the nougat and put in the side pieces as you spread it out to the edge but have them cut to size and ready to do this.
- Mix 1 cup sugar with 5 tablespoons of egg whites (hold back about 1.5 tablespoons to add later) in a automatic mixer with a whisk attachment on medium speed. Continue mixing while you prepare honey mixture on the stove.
- Mix honey and the remaining cup of sugar in a pan. Get a heavy bottomed soup pan ....a much bigger pan than you think you need. I started with a small saucepan and had to clumsily pour this mixture into consecutively larger pans until it wouldn't threaten to boil over. Here was the mess I ended up with so I wanted to pass it along to other unsuspecting newcomers to candy making. Boiled honey and sugar expands considerably. Lesson learned.
- It's good to have a candy thermometer for this but I can also attest that once this stuff starts to boil (anywhere from 5-15 minutes depending on your stove and pan), it takes another 4 minutes of boiling to reach the 290 degree temp (which isn't a totally hard torrone but it has a nice bite between soft crack and hard crack candy stage). You'll know when to start the 4 minute countdown on the 'boiling' because your mixture will start to expand with lots of frothy candy bubbles. Once this rapid expansion boiling starts, it should take 4 minutes to get to 290 degrees. I stirred it often before it boiled and frequently during the next 4 minute period (for no other reason than I felt like it).
- I poured the honey mixture slowly and carefully into the egg white mixture with the whisk attachment so it didn't splatter. Also add the extracts at this point. Mix on med to med high speed for 35 minutes. After 35 minutes, add the remaining egg white (about 1.5 tablespoons and mix for another 50 minutes. I put a cold ice pack on the top of my mixer because I had been running it non-stop for a long time. Not sure it helps but I felt better that I was pampering it. The KitchenAid did power through everything and doesn't seem to mind hours of non-stop use.
- With about 10 minutes remaining of mixing time, I put my almonds in a 350 degree oven for the last 10 minutes so that they would finish roasting and still be hot when I mixed them into the nougat. This is important because that nougat starts to set up fast after you take it off the stove so the hot nuts help to keep it from turning hard.
- If your mixer bowl is extra large, you might be able to just mix the nuts into this bowl. I had to pour the nougat mixture into another larger mixing bowl and then mix the nuts before putting it into the prepared pan.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. It will be really thick. Push down on the mixture to spread evenly in the pan....put those side pieces of wafer paper in place before you push the nougat to the edges. That side paper prevents it from adhering to the parchment paper (which might be tough to get off and it's not edible). Push on the top of the nougat pretty hard to get it even. Put more potato or rice wafer paper on top and press down again until you get a decent seal on top. Now it's the waiting game to harden.
- Let the nougat set up for at least a few hours and then remove from the pan. Discard any parchment paper but leave the edible papers in place. Cut the nougat into 2 inch wide strips. This will take some persistent pushing with a knife...aided by a mallet if necessary. The picture below shows the poundage produced. It made about 14 bars that were 6 ounces each Unfortunately, the color of the picture below has some kind of beige thing going on. It's a flaw in the photo (or, more likely, the photographer). It's delicious and not too difficult to get the results if you want to make great candy gifts. I wrapped each bar up in parchment paper and tied with butcher string. I'm probably fooling myself into thinking that wrapping these up would put a barrier between me and Torrone. I can untie a string pretty fast. Make these candy gifts if you want to kill a few hours on a rainy day. Your friends and family will love you for it.
Last comment...to my cousin Al....I have 6 pounds of this stuff waiting for you...:)
Buona Mangiata!
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