This recipe, from the cookbook Sweet Home Café Cookbook by Albert Lukas, combines sugar, butter, milk and nuts to form these very sweet candies.
Boil these ingredients together until thick, plop onto waxed paper, and you have one of the easiest homemade candies there are.
Because this is such a basic recipe, making variations is easy. Any kind of nut may be used; the Texas and Mexican version uses pecans, early European cooks used almonds and hazelnuts, and I like to use walnuts from a farm near Hollister. I buy them in the shell and even though it takes a little while to shell them, they last a long time.
The caramel taste comes from mixing white and brown sugar with butter. The Mexican version often uses piloncillo, and the American version sometimes uses corn syrup.
Cream, buttermilk and whole milk can be substituted for half-and-half, although the first 40-year-old recipe
from Margaret Anderson of New Orleans calls for only water.
It is recorded in many sources that pralines originated in France with the diplomat Maréchal du Plessis-Praslin, who lived from 1602 to 1675.
Supposedly the diplomat’s cook dropped whole almonds into a pot of boiling sugar. Plessis-Praslin so enjoyed the treats that they were called Praslines—later to become pralines.
French settlers brought the recipe to Louisiana where there was plenty of sugar cane and pecans. They are a well-known part of Southern cuisine.
Although it helps to have a candy thermometer, this recipe does not require it. What is important is to have a heavy-bottomed sauce pan and to stir the mixture as constantly as possible.
Pralines
1 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons salted butter
1/2 cup half and half milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups roughly chopped pecans, walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts.
Line a flat tray or cookie tin with parchment or wax paper.
In a heavy deep saucepan combine both sugars, butter and half and half. Cook over medium heat until mixture boils. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon. Use a thermometer and boil until 240 degrees.
If you don’t have a thermometer, boil until the mixture is very thick and the sugar crystals have dissolved. It should be so thick that when drop some onto the plate, it doesn’t
spread out. Lower heat, cook 3 more minutes. Add vanilla and stir well.
Remove pan from heat and stir in nuts. Continue to stir until mixture thickens and looks creamy.
Spoon small disks onto the pan covered with parchment or wax paper. Let cool to room
temperature. Store in an airtight container like a cookie tin. Grocery Outlet has many tins of various sizes to choose from. Keeps for several weeks.
