praline

Freshly scooped pralines cooling on a marble slab

Pralines on a cutting board

Pralin, (crushed praline)

Praline is a family of confections made from nuts and sugar syrup.

Pralines in America

As originally inspired in France at the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte by the cook of the 17th-century sugar industrialist Marshal du Plessis-Praslin (1598-1675),^[1][2] early pralines were whole almonds individually coated in caramelized sugar, as opposed to dark nougat, where a sheet of caramelized sugar covers many nuts.^[3]

French settlers brought this recipe to Louisiana, where both sugar cane and pecan trees were plentiful. During the 19th century, New Orleans chefs substituted pecans for almonds, added cream to thicken the confection, and thus created what became known throughout the American South as the praline.^[4][5][6][7]

Pralines in Europe

The powder made by grinding up such sugar-coated nuts is called pralin, and is an ingredient in many cakes, pastries, and ice creams.^[8] When this powder is mixed with chocolate it becomes praliné in French, which gave birth to what is known in French as praline belge, Belgian chocolates. The word praliné is used colloquially in France and Switzerland to refer to these, known simply as chocolates in English, i.e. various centres coated with chocolate.^[9] Outside of the United States, the word praline is used to mean this powder, or even a paste, often used to fill chocolates, hence its use by synecdoche in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium to refer to filled chocolates in general.^[10] In the United Kingdom, the term can refer either to praline (the filling for chocolates) or, less commonly, to the original whole-nut pralines.

In Europe, the nuts are usually almonds or sometimes hazelnuts. In Louisiana and Texas, pecans are almost always used, and cream is often incorporated into the mixture.^[11] In the United States, praline candies are typically associated with their birthplace of New Orleans, but are also popular in other cities in the Deep South.^[12]

Origin of the name

The praline (originally spelled prasline) is generally accepted as being named after the French soldier, diplomat, and sugar industrialist Marshal du Plessis-Praslin (1598-1675), whose cook supposedly invented it at the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte.^[13][14]

Stories surrounding the praline's origin

The actual creator of the praline is believed to be Clément Lassagne, the chef of Marshal du Plessis-Praslin, but there are several rumored accounts of the actual creation on the candy itself. Some versions have Lassagne getting the idea from children who were scavenging for scraps in the kitchens, nibbling on almonds and caramel left over from one of his pastry creations. In another tale, the children were discovered stealing almonds from the kitchens when Lassagne followed the delicious smell to find them caramelizing the almonds in sugar over a candle. Yet one more version has Lassagne getting the idea from a clumsy young apprentice who knocked over a container of almonds into a vat of cooking caramel. An even more playful account paints du Plessis-Praslin as a notorious ladies man, who asked his chef to come up with an irresistible treat he could present to the women he would court. It is said that he would put the sweet sugary nuts into little parcels marked with his name, which is why people began to call the sweets after him.^[15]

See also

• Brittle
• Fudge
• Nougat
• Scots tablet

References