During one of our visits to France I discovered an addictive sweet biscuit called nougatine. It’s a wafer thin almond concoction eaten with coffee/tea or used as a decorative wafer when serving ice cream. Or if you are like me, and a real pig, you could munch your way through this addictive creation in one serving! No, I didn’t on this occasion as I made this batch for a friend. But believe me it’s SO delicious it took all my will power to restrain myself…

My first attempt to cook nougatine proved disastrous; cooking like gardening is all about using the right utensils for the job. I’d been told to use a flexible baking tray but as I did not have one of these I decided to use a standard ceramic dish lined with grease proof paper instead. Not a good idea – the paper stuck to the nougatine as if it were super-glue which I then had to meticulously pick off bit by bit.

During my next trip to France I invested in a proper flexible cooking tray which is made from a certain type of rubbery-plastic the name of which escapes me at the moment.

Nougatine

Ingredients
200gt caster sugar
150ml water
125gr sliced almonds

Method
Add the sugar and water to the saucepan and heat until the sugar has melted and forms a light syrup.
Spread almonds as evenly as possible on the shallow flexible non-stick cooking tray.

Spoon the hot sugar syrup carefully and as evenly as possible over the almonds.
Cook in oven at approx 165C until starting to brown and syrup mixture starts to bubble(approx 25mins).

Leave a few minutes to cool. Gently releasing the cooked nougatine form flexible try, slide on to cooling tray and cut (well try) into squares. I found this nigh on impossible to cut through the almonds – the edges are a little uneven!

ENJOY!