Up until now, my food-related experience with Etsy has been with the myriad mini food jewelry pieces you can find there; I had no idea you could buy actual food – and more importantly, candy – there!
Word of warning: It looks like there’s a sidebar link for candies on the Etsy homepage. It’s actually candLes; disappointing. You want to click on the link for Plants and Edibles.
Kettle Confections is an Etsy maker of Almond Nougats that’s been featured on Martha Stewart Weddings’s website (as of writing time, they’re #47 in this list). I was fortunate enough to receive a free sample of their original and coffee flavored almond nougats.
The nougats were cut into thumb-sized rectangles and wrapped in edible rice paper. The rice paper will dissolve in your mouth without affecting the flavor.
It sticks to the candy but not to the wrapper, making it a smart packaging choice by Kettle Confections (also smart that they noted that it was edible on the package; not everyone grew up eating White Rabbit candy as I did, so not everyone thinks nothing of popping “paper” right into my mouth along with the candy). Though one or two of my un-rice-papered ends stuck to the wrappers, I had no trouble unwrapping my nougats.
Maybe a little trouble would have been a good thing. These nougats were delicious and disappeared all too quickly!
Both flavors were generously packed with almonds. I’ve been on an almond kick lately – I baked three batches of macarons and Dorie Greenspan’s Chocolate Amaretti Torte when I was home for the holidays – so these arrived at a good time. The whole almonds were super fresh and nicely roasted and thus packed with delicious roasty-nutty flavors.
The nougat was just chewy enough to get my jaw going, but not so chewy that it stuck to my teeth. The textures of the crunchy nuts and chewy nougat played off each other well, creating a texturally varied and addictively interesting treat.
The original nougats were sweet and tasted of milk and vanilla, which balanced well with the stronger roasted almond nuttiness. The coffee nougats had a strong coffee flavor but not of strong coffee – it was more cafe au lait. There was a slightly bitter coffee bite, but the nougat still tasted strongly of milk.
I loved both flavors and managed to polish off half of my bag all on my own. I would’ve eaten the whole thing, but I put some out in the living room for my roommates, and they got snatched up pretty quickly.
I didn’t know that I was a white nougat person until I tried these OMG-worthy treats. I’m now inspired to try more white nougats. Kettle Confections has certainly set the bar high!
Varsha