Nougat de Montélimar in detail.

These tips and tricks supplement my articles and recipe on making nougat de Montélimar.

Viscosity control

Both the honey and glucose syrup are quite viscous and sticky. This can be greatly mitigated in three ways:

• Avoid transferring vessels (see below)
• When you are measuring a syrup into a mise en place bowl, wipe it gently with a paper towel saturated with vegetable oil. This will help the syrup slide out of the bowl when needed.
• Most importantly, you can heat your glucose syrup and honey for a few seconds (10-30) in the microwave, which will make it much easier to pour.

Measurement

• Since the honey is quite viscous (making it difficult to move between vessels) and is cooked by itself, it is easiest simply to tare the scale with one of the saucepans and measure the warmed honey directly into it.
• As above with the honey, you can measure the egg ingredients directly into the mixer bowl (after taring out the scale to the bowl's weight). If weight everything together like this, the cumulative weight increments for the sugar (30g), albumen powder (10g), and fresh egg whites (50g) are: 30g, 40g, and 90g, respectively.
• The same could surely also be done with the glucose syrup (120g), sugar (380g) and water (100g). The cumulative increments are: 120g, 500g, and 600g, respectively.

Cocoa butter

Cocoa butter is easily melted in the microwave. It comes in pistoles, which are easy to measure out.

It also comes in solid form. If you opt for this version, you'll find it easier to portion if you use a chocolate fork .

Cleanup

Toss everything in the dishwasher without fear. The nougat encrustations on your utensils and pots may look daunting, but the warm water in the dishwasher will dissolve it all completely.

Next step

If you're going sequentially through my nougat curriculum, read on to the Short Form Recipe, which provides a succinct cheat sheet for when you have the basics down.