Help My Nougat!

Ok, so I have performed another experiment. I don't have any pics of it up yet because I am writing this post quickly and in desperation. Sadly, no one really follows my blog so I doubt I will get much wisdom, but I have to try something... even the internet won't give me the answer.

I tried to make divinity. I recognize the fact that I am not a very good candy maker. I'm more of a drop cookie kinda gal. I thought that maybe I should put in some practice though because candy can be expensive and making my own, being able to customize it, sounded intriguing.

So I found a recipe for divinity, that soft, fluffy, sweet, white nougat, in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It sounded relatively simple despite that there were 30 minutes in the recipe where I was supposed to be doing nothing, no stirring, no scraping, no measuring, nothing. I am not very good at doing nothing while I'm making something, I am very impatient. I tried my hand anyway. I put the sugar, water, and corn syrup in the pot and stirred just til it started to boil. I then turned the heat down until I achieved a consistent low boil. I boiled it untouched for probably about 25 minutes (though the recipe said 15-20 I wasn't relly concerned because I was being wussy about turning up the heat). Although I took the mixture off just as the termometer closed in on 260 (hard ball stage) I thought it looked pretty dark and had maybe overcooked despite the tellings of my equipment. I beat my egg whites in about 2 seconds with my hand mixed and brought them to what I'm pretty sure was pretty stiff peaks. Then I drizzled in the hot sugar syrup blending as I went. The candy turned out to taste pretty good. I had added vanilla and some chopped pecans to the mix. The problem I discovered was this: my divinity was not divine.

Honestly when I was making the divinity, I did not know it was a form of nougat. I figured this out when nougat was what I ended up with. Hard, dense, filling removing nougat. It wasn't fluffy at all. It didn't stay in nice little mounds on my baking sheet. Instead, it pretended to keep a shape only to ooze into a flattened blob a half an hour later. Why is my divinity so dense? What did I do wrong? How does one achieve the glorious fluffy texture I so desire? I have reviewed a number of divinity and nougat recipes now and they seem so similar that I cannot even really choose a technique out of the recipe that makes them different. Help, someone. Please, help my nougat!