Review: Sweet Vegan's Vegan Nougat

UPDATE: Sweet Vegan are now trading as Marshmallow Deli

Traditional white nougat, without the egg-white. Call it fairground style, or french style, this is the chewy white block sort of nougat you get at the seaside (or in France). It's traditionally made with egg-white, or with gelatine, but Sweet Vegan use carrageenan, like they do in their marshmallows:

The nougat explanation is needed, because the word can mean different things. German nougat is more like praline for instance. Nougat is also the name of the stuff inside a Mars bar (or vegan Twilight bar), but that's quite different from this stuff.

The three varieties that Sweet Vegan produce are Roasted Hazelnut, Cherry & Almond and Choc-dipped Roasted Hazelnut. The texture of the three nougat batches varies quite a bit - this is artisan-made after all.  

The hazelnut nougat (above) is deliciously nutty, and packed with perfectly roasted hazelnuts. This nougat was the softest on the test, and the one we preferred. The texture is like a dense chewy marshmallow. The nougat comes with edible rice paper on the outside.

The cherry and almond nougat was firmer, but not quite hard or crunchy. This flavour is also delicious  but doesn't have that toasted nut flavour of the hazelnut batch.

The third flavour is Choc-dipped Roasted Hazelnut, which is the same as the hazelnut nougat, coated in belgian dark chocolate. We can understand the use of high-cocoa chocolate, but we'd have preferred a sweeter, less bitter chocolate.

This nougat is unique in the UK as far as we're aware. We don't know of any other source of vegan white nougat. It's high quality stuff, and as far as we remember it's pretty similar to the stuff with egg-whites.

Sweet Vegan - the company 

One thing we do have to mention is the customer service record of Sweet Vegan. The company make great products, but don't appear to have the customer service standard to match. Commenters on our previous reviews claim long waits for delivery and slow responses to enquiries.

Sweet Vegan make all of their products fresh to order, in batches. That means you should expect to wait 3-4 weeks for delivery, which is unusually long in the internet age. Don't expect to hear from the company in those weeks either. 

If you find yourself waiting longer than a month for delivery, and genuinely can't get an answer from the company, then as a last resort you will be able to get a refund from PayPal (assuming that's how you've paid).

Don't let the waiting time put you off - the products are well worth the wait.

You can buy Sweet Vegan confectionery online at sweetvegan.co.uk

The Good: Great texture and flavours
The Not-so Good: Variable textures between batches

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Veganoo Score: ★★★★☆
Sweet Vegan - Vegan Nougat 

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Footnote: Ingredients

Here are the ingredients listings from the packs we reviewed.

Roasted Hazelnut

Fairtrade Sugar, Water, Glucose Syrup, Carrageenan, Cornflour, Coconut Oil, Confectioners Sugar, Natural Madagascan Vanilla, Roasted Hazelnuts, Potato Starch, Vegetable Oil

Edible paper coating.

Cherry & Almond

Fairtrade Sugar, Water, Glucose Syrup, Carrageenan, Cornflour, Coconut Oil, Confectioners Sugar, Natural Madagascan Vanilla, Roasted Almonds, Cherries, Potato Starch, Vegetable Oil

Edible paper coating.

Choc-dipped Roasted Hazelnut

Fairtrade Sugar, Water, Glucose Syrup, Carrageenan, Cornflour, Coconut Oil, Confectioners Sugar, Natural Madagascan Vanilla, Roasted Hazelnuts, Potato Starch, Vegetable Oil

Edible paper coating.  Dipped in Dark Belgian Chocolate

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