Food in Colours - White - Almond Cherry and White Chocolate Nougat

I am on holidays at the moment, and I am loving it! I apologise in advance for not being a good blogger over the next couple of weeks. This week I am staying with my mother, who lives interstate, and then we are all going away to a coastal town where I will not have any computer access (although I hope to pre-program some posts to load while I am away). I wish you and your families a very merry Christmas, and a peaceful and happy New Year.

With the mad round of Christmas functions well and truly over, I can now share with you some more of the treats that I made for my colleagues and friends to put in their Christmas boxes. Today's post is all about Bill Granger's yummy almond, cherry and white chocolate nougat from Holiday, which also happens to tie in nicely with Yummy Food's hosting of Food in Colours - White. Food in Colours is a monthly event created by Tongue Ticklers.

Now, you are probably thinking that, apart from the rice paper on top of my nougat, it is brown. You would be correct - but it is supposed to be a glorious pristine white, hence why I am entering it in this event. I slightly overcooked the syrup used to make the nougat, so while it tasted very good and not the least burnt, it wasn't the wonderful winter white that it is supposed to be. So please dear readers, overlook the not-so-perfect colouration of my nougat, and instead imagine the wonderful sweetness and crispy yet chewy texture of this delightful sweet.

I was actually very proud of how this turned out. If you want to develop your biceps without going to the gym, then make plenty of this nougat, because it becomes very thick towards the end of the creation process, making it almost impossible to stir through the almonds, dried cherries and white chocolate chunks, and once it has set, it requires all of your strength to cut it into bite-sized squares. However, it is worth it - I had quite a few pieces of this left over from my Christmas parcels, and they all went down the hatch!

Rather than potentially trip you up with my re-hash of the recipe for this nougat, it is available online at the ABC's website here, or in the Sydney Morning Herald here (along with a lovely photo of what it should look like). Although the difficulty says "medium", I am not a sweet maker, and I had no problems with it, other than that I let the syrup cook a teensy bit too long. I can thoroughly recommend it - it is delicious.

You have until 31 December to make your own Food in Colour - White entry, and do check out the roundup of inventive wintry white dishes at Yummy Food after that.