Every Christmas season the local groceries sell 2 kinds of Spanish turrones, Alicante and Jijona. The last 2 years the alicantes were hard as rocks I didn't buy any and bought just a few boxes of jijona. About 7 years ago I made the soft nougat much like the Italian soft torrone. It was not easy to make, it sticks everywhere and I never made the thing again. Recently I found these individually boxed Ferrara torrones, they are sooo good specially the lemon flavor, they're soft and chewy and not so sweet. I think they are very similar to the Montelimar French nougat. Since I'm into ice cream these days I thought I should make turron ice cream but did not want to use up my Ferrara torrones. So I made soft nougat this afternoon using honey in place of corn syrup. I got the recipe online and is surprisingly easy to make, the only thing missing is the thin rice paper which is impossible to get here in the US. I used to buy the German made ones when we were living in HongKong. I will try the edible "rice" paper made from potato starch that are used to decorate cakes. However I found a way to avoid the candies sticking to papers, fingers, etc by rolling them in sweet rice powder, then individually wrapping them in parchment. Yay, I can make turron ice cream tomorrow.
my torrone is on the left, I used sliced almonds because it will be easier to eat in ice cream. I cut mine to almost the same size as the torrone, about 1½ x 1 inch.
they look and taste the same to me, mmmmm. I can do this regularly using lemon, orange or vanilla flavors, and dried fruits instead of nuts. I'll still buy Ferrara torrones, though.
