Praline

Pralines on a cutting board Pralines and box posed

Pralines in a box

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

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. In the United States,
praline candy patties are one of the foods most often associated with New Orleans, but are also
popular in other cities in the Deep South, like Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia,
where the similar benne seed wafer is also common.

As originally invented in France at the Château of Vaux-le Vicomte by the cook of the 17th
century sugar industrialist, Praslin. Pralines were whole almonds individually coated in
caramelized sugar, as opposed to dark nougat, where a sheet of caramelized sugar covers many
nuts. The powder made by grinding up such sugar-coated nuts is called pralin or praliné in
French, and is an ingredient in many cakes, pastries, and ice creams.

In most other countries 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. In the United Kingdom, the term can refer either to praline (the
filling for chocolates) or, less commonly, to the original whole-nut pralines.

Origin of the name

The praline (originally spelled prasline) is said to be 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. The cook, Clément Lassagne, after retiring from the
marshal's service, is said to have founded the Maison de la Praline, a confectioner's shop which
still exists in Montargis, 110 km south of Paris. The name has certainly existed since the 18th
century, but there is no secure connection with the Marshal or his cook.