The Spanish nougat dessert made with almonds and honey is turrón.
Turrón is a Mediterranean nougat traditionally made by cooking honey, sugar, and egg white before adding toasted almonds or other nuts. In Spain it is especially associated with Christmas, when bars of the confection appear on holiday tables and in shops. Its texture ranges from hard and brittle to soft and crumbly.
The two best-known Spanish styles are turrón de Alicante, or duro, which contains whole almonds in a firm nougat, and turrón de Jijona, or blando, in which the almonds are ground into a paste. Both styles are linked to the towns of Alicante and Jijona in the Valencian Community. Modern versions may add chocolate, candied fruit, pistachios, or other flavorings.
The dessert’s deeper history is not completely settled. Its name may relate to the Latin verb torrere, meaning “to toast,” while the confection may also reflect Muslim culinary traditions in medieval Islamic Spain. A 16th-century Spanish recipe manuscript already describes a honey-and-egg-white sweet containing almonds or other nuts.
Mazapán is almond paste, while polvorón and mantecado are crumbly Spanish cookies, so none is an exact synonym for turrón.