Sweet teeth--Easy homemade Nougat with Marshmallow

How to make chewy Nougat with marshmallow at home--Super easy version!

I read about this recipe long ago but didn't have chance to try it out. Here comes the holiday season and how wonderful It would be if I can make some holiday themed candy for my friends? Then I instantly think about this recipe. Not only because it is super easy, but also I really missed the Nougat so I can have some "chef treat" from the edges and ends. Let's do that!

Basic formula:
Unsalted butter: 30g
Original mini marshmallow: 150g
Pinch of salt
Fat free dry milk : 90-100g (depends on how soft you want your nougat and what additive you have. And, supermarket brand preferred rather than Nestle, I will explain later. )

You can make endless flavor combinations or design developed from here. This time, to make it holiday theme, I made 3 color/flavor nougat:
Red/white: Cranberry peppermint crunch
Green: Matcha(green tea) peanut
Brown: Mocha pecan

Let's go over the ingredients one by one:
No matter what flavor you make, the butter, marshmallow and salt won't change.


For Red: 
Dry milk: 90g,
Cherry infused dry cranberry 60g (divided to 40+20g. 40g chopped for mixing into the nougat and 20g slightly chopped for topping)
Mini Peppermint sugar cane: 10*, chopped into small pieces

For green:
Dry milk: 80g
Matcha powder: 8g (I bought this in China because it is not so easily found in the U.S.. But I found some online in ebay. also on Nuts.com. The pure powder is quite pricy but the pre-made matcha tea mix also works. So you can use this Matcha tea mix or similar kinds you can bought in Asian/international grocery store)
Peanuts: 80g, toasted and chopped into small crunch

For Brown:
Dry milk: 75g
Coffee grinds: 8g (instant coffee also works)
Cocoa powder: 5g (natural or dutch processed both works)
Pecan: 80g, toasted and chopped into small crunch)

Steps:
You will need a non-stick small skillet pan, a rubber spatula, two pieces of parchment paper, a rolling pin and a knife.

1. In the pan, heat up the butter until just melted

2. Pour in the mini marshmallow and adjust the heat level to medium at the same time, stir and stir until they  are coated with butter. After a couple of minutes, you will observe that the small "puffs" begin to swell.

3. You don't need to wait until every thing is completely melted, just when there is no obvious chunk of "puffs", pour in all of the rest ingredients. Adjust the heat to low and stir quickly.

4.  When there is no obvious milk powder and it will form to play dough-like consistency with a shining appearance. You may need to lift the pan off the heat during the stirring process if you see some crystal like trace on the surface of the dough or there is too much add-in which cost too long to mix. Those are area that lost too much moist and will make the candy over chewy even hard after cooled down. So we don't want it to be heated too long. 

5. Pour the dough onto a parchment paper, cover it with another paper. Roll the dough out with the rolling pin to about 1/4 inch (about 1cm) thick.

5b. For the red or any kinds that you want to put some decorations on top, sprinkle them now and re-roll the top after covered with the parchment paper to "press" down those toppings.

6. Wait for about 10-15min until the dough cooled down to just a little warm. Use the knife to cut into square/rectangular/diamond shape as you like.

7. Further cool them down and store them into jars or Ziploc bags. They will last for weeks but since the nuts tend to become rancid. Don't wait too long. (I am sure you will eat them up before that happened because they are so so delicious!)

Notes:
1. Like I said before that the milk powder is adjustable depending on how chewy you want your nougat. The amount I provided here is on soft side. So they tend to stick together while storage(not solid sticky, just adhere together but still take no efforts to separate them apart). You can add a little bit more milk powder to make them hold their shape better.
2. I mentioned before I preferred supermarket brand rather than Nestle/Carnation milk powder. Because I found the supermarket brand has some bigger powder clusters rather than just super fine powder. This really give the nougat another layer of texture. Slightly crunchy with burst of milky flavor. Yum!
3. There are endless flavor combinations: except for nuts and dry fruits that you can go wild, for flavoring/coloring part. you can choose coconut powder, cocoa powder,  fruit juice powder. Just remember if you add powdered form additive. Decrease some of the milk powder to make sure it's not over chewy. Also I suggest not to go too crazy about powder form additive because the milky flavor is till critical for this candy.

A lonely nougat...

So, Merry Christmas and happy new year everybody!
Have fun!