When I was little, one of my most prized possessions was my Pick & Mix Sweet Shop. It had lollipop holders, trays for assorted sweets and even a little weighing scale in the centre: I loved it. Unfortunately, I never actually had enough sweets at any one time to fill my sweet shop, so it sat in my room, beloved, but rather depressingly low in stock.

Every Christmas, I make quite a few festive sweets and treats for my whole family to enjoy. It occurred to me recently, while preparing for the festive season, that I am a grown adult with free will, so I decided to pay tribute to my Pick & Mix Sweet Shop and make my own homemade, festive, sweet shop this year, filled with all of my family’s favourite treats (unfortunately, I cannot charge my family members for the sweets… it is Christmas after all… so take the term ‘shop’ with a pinch of salt!).

In today’s post, I’ll talk you through all of the equipment I used to set up this sweet shop and go through the 6 sweets that I made one-by-one, in case you too have an inner child with a sweet shop fixation that needs to be HEARD.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Table of Contents

• What You Need
• The Sweets
  • Rocky Road Bark
  • Peppermint Bark
  • Cherry & Almond Chocolate Puddles
  • Toffee Popcorn
  • Pistachio Nougat
  • Christmas Market-Style Nuts
• Setting Up the Sweet Shop
• Final Thoughts

What You Need

There are only two things that are absolutely essential for making your own sweet shop: sweets (obviously!) and containers to keep the sweets in. However, if you want to go the extra mile, you can also use some fun, festive decorations and make a whole display out of it!

Most of the things I bought for this sweet shop were from Sostrene Grene, one of my favourite places to shop during the festive season. I’ve linked everything down below, but their stock does change up pretty frequently, so the specific items may not be available anymore. Hopefully, though, the links will give you an idea of what each product looks like, so you can find similar versions!

For my sweet shop, I used the following things:

• Sweets

I used homemade sweets for my shop, but you could also absolutely buy your favourite treats and decant them into pretty jars to make it easier (but just as fun and special!).

• Jars

You’ll need one jar/container per sweet. I tried to source a variety of different shapes and sizes: I already had the two square jars and I bought the others from Sostrene Grene (links below).

Large jar with wooden lid.

Small jar with wooden lid.

Large round jar.

Small round jar.

• Tongs

This was a.. slightly frivolous purchase and by no means necessary, but, when I was buying the jars from Sostrene Grene, I saw these gold tongs and I thought they’d be so cute (and useful!) for getting the treats out of the jars. They actually work really well for the job, so I think it paid off!

• Faux pine garland

This is a festive sweet shop after all, so I nestled the jars in amongst this faux pine garland.

• Christmas lights

You guessed it, these gold star fairy lights are also from Sostrene Grene! They’re wired, so I was able to coax them into the shape I wanted, weaving them around the jars with the garland.

• Knitted sweets

If you’ve been following along with Blogmas At Home this year, you might have seen that I made these knitted sweets earlier on this month and I thought they’d make perfect decorations for this sweet shop! I just dotted them around the place, nestling them within the pine garland.

• Gingerbread Christmas tree

I haven’t shared my gingerbread undertaking for this year yet (don’t worry, it’s coming soon!), so I guess this is a bit of a sneak peak, but I feel like this sprinkle-coated, gingerbread tree fits the whole fun, sweet shop-vibe perfectly, so of course it had to feature!

The Sweets

I made 6 different treats for my sweet shop: Rocky Road Bark, Peppermint Bark, Cherry & Almond Chocolate Puddles, Toffee Popcorn, Pistachio Nougat and Christmas Market-Style Nuts. Because all of these sweets have pretty long shelf lives, I was able to spread the candy-making process out over a week, so I didn’t get too tired out (or overwhelmed by sugar!).

All of the recipes for these treats are available here on the blog. I’ll link to each one below, so you can make them yourself, if you fancy!

Rocky Road Bark

This Rocky Road Bark was a new entry to our festive treat list last Christmas and is a favourite of my sister-in-law!

It’s made with a 50/50 blend of milk and dark chocolate, mixed with crumbled digestive biscuits and topped with a scattering of mini marshmallows and raisins.

Find my recipe for Rocky Road Bark here.

Peppermint Bark

Peppermint Bark is the OG Christmas sweet in our household: my mum received a homemade version as a gift from her friend many Christmases ago and we loved it so much that I had to recreate it immediately! We’ve been making it ever since. In fact, it’s actually the first recipe I ever shared here on the blog!

The bark is made up of a thin layer of milk chocolate topped with a thin layer of white chocolate, which is then sprinkled with crushed up candy canes.

Find my recipe for Peppermint Bark here.

Cherry & Almond Chocolate Puddles

A new addition to the festive spread this year: these Cherry & Almond Chocolate Puddles are the final, chocolate-y offering in my sweet shop and a special request from my brother.

The puddles come in two varieties: dark chocolate puddles, topped with a whole almond and whole dried cherry, and milk chocolate puddles, topped with flaked almonds and chopped dried cherries.

Find my recipe for Cherry & Almond Chocolate Puddles here.

Toffee Popcorn

Toffee Popcorn isn’t an inherently festive treat, but it’s so addictive that I like to reserve it for special occasions (like Christmas)! My dad is a huge toffee popcorn fan, so this one’s for him.

This year, I decided to pull out all of the stops and make my toffee popcorn with a special variety of popcorn kernel known as ‘mushroom popcorn’ (I bought the Joe & Seph’s kernels). Contrary to what the name might imply, this popcorn does not taste at all of mushrooms (thank goodness, because I’m not a fan!), it’s the shape of the popped corn that gives it its name, because the kernels pop up into big, fluffy balls (kind of like the cap of a mushroom)! It’s the type of popcorn typically used by cinemas, so it has a really nostalgic, special vibe that I thought would really add to the festive magic this year!

Find my recipe for Toffee Popcorn here.

Pistachio Nougat

Making nougat is a slightly more involved process than the other sweet treats on this list so, just like the toffee popcorn, I only make it for really special occasions. This Pistachio Nougat is a particular favourite of my mum’s!

Made with egg whites, honey and roasted pistachios, this nougat is a really fun and impressive treat to make this Christmas.

Find my recipe for Pistachio Nougat here.

Christmas Market-Style Nuts

It wouldn’t be December without my Christmas Market-Style Nuts: these are always my absolute favourite treat when I visit any Christmas Market, so learning how to make them at home was a game-changer.

This year, I’ve used a combination of pecans (my all-time favourite), hazelnuts and macadamia nuts. They’re coated in a salty, sugary, cinnamon mixture, then baked until deliciously crunchy.

Find my recipe for Christmas Market-Style Nuts here.

Setting Up the Sweet Shop

Once you have all of your sweets, jars and assorted decorations, you’re ready to set up your sweet shop! Obviously, you can do this however you want and make it as simple or as over-the-top as you want, but, if you’d prefer to relinquish the mental effort and just follow some instructions, here’s what I’d do…

Choose a space that’s both easily accessible (to humans, not to pets!) and out of the way of the typical Christmas hustle and bustle (you don’t want to be knocking over jars as you’re trying to roast a turkey!). A side table or countertop would work perfectly.

Fill each jar with a different sweet/treat. If you have too many sweets for your jars, you can always mix similar sweets together (I’ve done this here: I put the milk and dark chocolate puddles in the same jar!).

Set the jars out first. This allows you to get their positioning right without having to deal with all of the extra decorations. Place the larger jars at the back and the smaller jars towards the front, so that you can see them all from the front. If everything feels a little too on one level, consider placing some of the jars on upturned ramekins (or other assorted knick-knacks), to add a little more height and dimension!

Once you’re happy with the placement of the jars, it’s time to decorate! Here, I’ve used a pine garland, a string of wired fairy lights, some knitted sweets and a gingerbread Christmas tree, but you can obviously use anything you have/think would look good.

I’d recommend starting with the biggest (bushiest?) decoration first (here, that’s my pine garland), as this will give you a base to work with. I wrapped my garland around all of the jars, adjusting (and readjusting) it until I was happy with how it looked.

Next, I added the fairy lights. Adding some lighting helps to make the setup extra festive and cosy-looking. I’ve used these battery-operated gold star lights, which was great because it meant I didn’t have to worry about plugging anything in.

Finally, I added the smaller, individual decorations in amongst the garlands and jars. I placed the gingerbread tree to one side of the setup, then dotted the knitted sweets around the place, nestling them amongst the branches of the pine garland.

And then, you’re done! Turn the fairy lights on, grab some little bowls or paper bags and get the whole family to visit your festive sweet shop before settling down to watch a Christmas film.

Final Thoughts

I think this is such a special, over-the-top (in the best way), thing to do for your family/friends (and yourself!) this festive season. I’m all about making Christmas feel super magical and if putting my homemade treats into some fancy jars and spending a bit of time arranging them does that, then I’m all for it!

Having said that, this is obviously a very extra approach to the festive season and I am aware that not everybody has the time, energy or mental headspace to take on a project like this, particularly at this time of year! You can always take bits and pieces of this idea: make just one of my homemade sweet recipes, find a single, fancy jar in a charity shop and fill it with Quality Street or store-bought nuts, or even just bring some greenery in from the garden and weave a string of fairy lights through it to decorate your home. Christmas is always a bit stressful, but there’s no reason to make it more stressful: I go to such extremes because it brings me joy, not because it’s in any way necessary.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post: it’s a bit of a special one (it had to be, for the halfway point of Blogmas At Home 2025!), so I’m excited to see what you think. I really embraced my inner child (and my inherent lack of restraint) to make something that I think is really fun and I’m super proud of it!

Gemma

xxx

Once upon a time, my family went on holiday to the south of France. We visited Carcassonne, which is a fortified city that is very popular with tourists and bought some nougat from a chocolate shop. Immediately, we were hooked.

During lockdown, I dedicated myself to recreating the nougat at home. Naturally, I fell deep down the nougat rabbit hole. It turns out, not all nougats are made equal: there are hard, brittle versions; soft, fluffy versions; dense, chocolate-y versions and many, many more. I am pretty certain that the nougat we had is called (or is at least similar to) Nougat de Montélimar, which is soft, thick and chewy (sounds right, anyway!).

Anyway, I digress. After, a bit of trialling and testing, I finally have my perfect nougat recipe. My favourite flavour on the trip was the pistachio one, so I’m sharing the recipe for a pistachio nougat today!

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Ingredients
• Making the Nougat
• Storage Instructions
• Tips & Tricks
• Recipe

Equipment

Making sweets/candy usually requires some specialist equipment to make sure everything goes smoothly. Here is the equipment that you’ll need to make this nougat:

• Candy thermometer

A candy thermometer is a MUST for this recipe. The sugar syrup needs to reach a specific temperature (140°C) to achieve the perfect, soft and chewy texture. There are other ways that you can test the temperature of the syrup, but they can be a bit of a faff and are nowhere near as accurate. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, I’d strongly recommend buying one for this recipe (you can use it for so many other recipes too!). I like to use a probe thermometer, because they’re super accurate and easy to clean!

• Stand mixer

Another must: this recipe requires 15 whole minutes (yes, really) of full-speed whisking. You do not want to be doing that by hand, even if you have an electric hand whisk!

• Rolling pin

To get the nougat perfectly smooth and even, it’s rolled out between two sheets of wafer paper. To do this, you need a rolling pin (though, if you don’t have one, you could always use a wine bottle)!.

• Spatula

Nougat is sticky, particularly when it’s warm, so a spatula (lightly greased with oil) will be your best friend.

• Flat-edged wooden spoon

You need a really strong implement to stir the nuts through the nougat (it’s super stiff!) and my preference is a flat-edged wooden spoon. The flat edge makes it really easy to get right down to the bottom of bowl and make sure no nougat goes to waste. A regular wooden spoon will also work, though, if that’s what you have.

Ingredients

To make pistachio nougat, you will need the following ingredients:

• Wafer paper

This is a specialist ingredient, but you can find it online (I used this one, from Amazon). It’s typically sold in A4 sheets and you’ll need 2 sheets for this recipe. Nougat can get sticky, so a sheet of wafer paper is placed underneath and on top of the slab to make it easier to manage/eat later on!

• Pistachios

I’ve used whole pistachios in this nougat (to make it pistachio nougat), but you can use different nuts if you prefer. You could even do a combination of nuts, such as pistachios and almonds.

• Caster sugar

I used golden caster sugar for my nougat, but white caster sugar would work just as well.

• Honey

Honey is a key ingredient for this style of nougat: it adds flavour and helps to achieve that perfect, chewy texture.

• Water

Is water an ingredient? I suppose so, when it needs to be measured precisely! The water is combined with the sugar and honey to form a syrup, which is whisked together with the egg whites.

• Egg whites

Egg whites form the base of the nougat. You don’t need the yolks for this recipe, so you can use them for something else!

• Green food colouring

This is optional, but I like to add green food colouring to this nougat recipe, just to really drive home the whole ‘pistachio’ thing. You can leave it out, or you can use a different colour, instead. I used the Aqua Blend food colouring from Colour Mill in the shade Forest, but I’ve used other food colourings in the past and they worked absolutely fine.

• Sunflower oil

As I mentioned, nougat gets sticky, so it’s handy to have a little oil to hand to grease your spatula/knife. I’ve used sunflower, but any flavourless oil will work. It just helps you to work with the nougat without it getting stuck to anything and everything!

Making the Nougat

The first step when making this nougat is to toast the pistachios (or whichever nuts you’re using). I like to just give them a gentle toast, so they taste extra delicious but still keep their vibrant green colour. Just put them in a dry pan over medium-high heat for a few minutes, giving them a shake every now and then, until they’re smelling nutty. Once they’re toasted, remove them from the pan and set them aside to cool while you make the nougat.

Place the sugar, honey and water into a large saucepan. Set the pan over medium heat and allow the sugar to melt. Try not to stir it too much once it’s on the heat (you don’t want the sugar to crystallise!).

While the sugar is melting, place the egg whites and 10-15 drops of food colouring (if using) in the metal bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Adding the food colouring at this stage means you’ll get a more even colour throughout the nougat, but, as the nougat whips, the colour will become much less vibrant, so you need more than you think! You can always add more later though, if needed (and I did need to because, at this stage, I added a grand total of 3 drops to my nougat, which left it looking practically snow white). Leave this to the side, ready to whisk later on.

Once the sugar has melted, keep the syrup over the heat and monitor the temperature of it with a candy thermometer. You’re aiming for it to reach 140°C.

Once the sugar reaches approximately 130°C (at this point it will be bubbling away nicely!), turn the stand mixer up to high speed and whisk the egg whites until they reach stiff peaks.

You don’t want to do this too early, or the egg whites will collapse before the syrup is ready. Similarly, you don’t want to leave it too late, or the syrup will cool down too much before the egg whites are ready! I find that 130°C is a pretty good sweet spot.

Once the sugar reaches 140°C, remove the pan from the heat. With the mixer still running on high, pour the syrup into the beaten egg whites in a slow, steady stream down the side of the bowl.

Turn the mixer up to full speed and leave it to whisk for about 15 minutes, or until the nougat is thick, stiff and beginning to tear. The nougat will still be warm (and the metal bowl pretty hot) at this point, so be careful when you handle it!

You can see in the photo above what happens when you add the food colouring at this stage (as opposed to with the egg whites): there’s a clear colour divide in the bowl! Luckily, the colours mix together pretty easily with a wooden spoon and a bit of elbow grease, so don’t worry too much.

From now on, work quite quickly, as the nougat will become harder to work with the cooler it gets. Tip in the toasted, cooled pistachios.

Use a flat-bottomed wooden spoon to mix them into the nougat, making sure to get right down to the bottom of the bowl.

Place one sheet of the wafer paper onto a clean work surface. Tip the nougat on top of the wafer paper.

Use a lightly oiled spatula to press the nougat down slightly.

Place the second sheet of wafer paper right on top of the nougat and smooth it out with your hands. Use a rolling pin to roll out the nougat to your desired thickness (mine was about 2.5cm/1 inch thick, but you can go as thick/thin as you want!).

Set the nougat aside at room temperature for a couple of hours to cool down, then transfer the slab to an airtight container and leave it overnight to firm up completely.

Once it’s set, you can trim off any excess paper with a pair of scissors and cut it into bitesize squares with a large knife, ready to enjoy! If you find that the nougat is sticking to your knife, you can lightly grease the knife with a little more flavourless oil to help prevent this.

Storage Instructions

The nougat keeps really well, so you can make it in advance. Store it in an airtight container at room temperature and it will be fine for up to 1 month, ready for giving to your friends/family as presents or just enjoying throughout the festive season!

Tips & Tricks

• Colouring the nougat

The easiest time to add food colouring to nougat is at the start, before you whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, because it will ensure that the nougat is evenly tinted. However, it can be really hard to tell how much you need at this stage, because the colour will get significantly paler once the nougat is whisked. Luckily, you can always add more colouring later on (you’ll just have to mix in any residual, paler streaks in by hand!).

• Oil

Lightly oiling your utensils (particularly the spatula you use to transfer the nougat from the bowl to the wafer paper and the knife you use to cut the nougat before serving) is super helpful, because it prevents the nougat from sticking to them. I’d definitely recommend keeping some oil on hand to save your sanity!

• Washing up

Nougat is sticky (have I mentioned that enough times?), so washing up all of the bowls and pans can seem a bit daunting! The important thing to remember, though, is that nougat is mainly sugar and sugar dissolves in water. Just fill the mixer bowl and saucepan with hot, soapy water, submerge all of the other nougat-y/syrupy utensils in the bowl/pan and leave for 5-10 minutes. It’ll be so much easier to clean afterwards!

Recipe

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Pistachio Nougat

Soft, chewy, French-style nougat, filled with pistachios.

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine French

Keyword Nougat, Pistachio

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Setting time 12 hours hours

Total Time 13 hours hours

Servings 70 squares

Equipment

• candy thermometer

Ingredients

• 2 sheets A4 wafer paper (see Note 1).
• 165 g pistachios
• 450 g caster sugar
• 225 g honey
• 75 ml water
• 75 g egg whites (approx. 2 large eggs).
• 10-15 drops Green food colouring (optional)(see Note 2).
• Sunflower oil, for greasing.

Instructions

• Place the pistachios into a dry pan and toast over medium-high heat until smelling nutty. Remove from the pan and set aside to cool.
• Place the sugar, honey and water into a large saucepan. Place over medium heat and wait for the sugar to dissolve. Do not stir.
• Place the egg whites into the metal bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Add the green food colouring, if using (the colour will pale significantly when the nougat is whipped, but you can always add more colouring later on if needed). Set aside for now.
• Once the sugar has dissolved, keep the syrup over the heat and allow to bubble away. Monitor the temperature using a candy thermometer.
• Once the syrup reaches about 130°C, start whipping the egg whites on high speed until they reach stiff peaks.
• Once the syrup reaches 140°C, remove it from the heat and, with the mixer running on high, pour it into the egg whites in a slow, steady stream down the side of the bowl.
• Turn the mixer speed up to full and leave the nougat to whip for about 15 minutes, until the mixture is thick, stiff and beginning to tear. When you stop the machine and lift the whisk, the ribbon falling from it should tear off. The nougat will still be warm (as will the metal bowl, so be careful!).
• At this point, work quickly, because the nougat will get harder to work with the cooler it gets. Add the toasted pistachios and use a wooden spoon to stir them into the nougat until they are evenly distributed.
• Place one of the wafer paper sheets onto a clean work surface. Tip the nougat onto the wafer paper. Use a lightly oiled spatula to flatten out the nougat slightly, then press the second wafer paper sheet on top of it. Use a rolling pin to gently and evenly flatten out the nougat until it is your desired thickness (mine was approx. 2.5cm/1 inch).
• Leave the nougat at room temperature to cool for a couple of hours, then transfer the slab to an airtight container and leave overnight to set. Once set, trim off any excess wafer paper around the edges with a pair of scissors, then use a sharp, lightly oiled knife to cut it into squares.
• Store the nougat in an airtight container at room temperature. It will keep for about 1 month.

Notes

1. I used this wafer paper from Amazon.
2. I used the Aqua Blend colouring from Colour Mill in the shade Forest.

Recipe adapted from https://www.souschef.co.uk/blogs/the-bureau-of-taste/strawberry-pistachio-nougat-recipe