Torrone (Turrón / White Nougat)
Confection
Top 10 pairings
Torrone (Spanish turrón, French nougat de Montélimar) is a Mediterranean confection of whipped egg white and honey folded with toasted nuts — usually almonds, sometimes hazelnuts, pistachios or pine nuts — and set into pale, ivory-white bars. The soft egg-white type is aerated and chewy; a firmer, brittle type snaps like hard candy.
Picking a good onedrag
White, dry, cleanly setDamp, sandy, rancid
Open a few daysEveryday bestStill the festive bar: hand it round after a meal or shard it over ice cream. Every torrone is tree nut and egg white, and the hard type can pull at dental work.
Read the cut faceIvory warming toward cream, the nuts still well spread across the whole face
Smell the broken faceStill honeyed and nutty but quieter, more plain sugar than toasted nut
Press it, or snap a pieceRight but a shade off - a duller crack, or a soft bar firmer to the bite
The wafer and the wrapWafer intact with a scuff or two, the pack sealed and from a named maker