The best pralines I’ve ever had came straight out of New Orleans, and with Mardi Gras going on this week, I was inspired to make a few to celebrate. My grandmother, bless her, had a pretty fantastic pecan praline recipe, but after a lot of sifting through my files, I couldn’t find it. So I did the next best thing and opened up a few of the church and Junior League cookbooks from New Orleans and pieced together a pecan praline recipe of my own.
If you’ve never had them (and amazingly there are people out there who have not!), pralines are more candy than cookie. The sweet caramel taste will melt in your mouth with the slightest hint of cream and finish with a satisfying pecan crunch.
Pecan Praline Recipe
Being that they are more candy than cookie, cooking them does take a little practice. If you have a candy thermometer, you’ll want to pull it out. If you don’t, a meat thermometer works just fine. It’s what I use! Humidity will affect how these come out. In one of the recipes I saw for pralines, there was even a barometer reading recommendation! I think closed up heated/cooled houses will do just fine to get these to come out right.
2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup half and half creamer
2 tablespoons butter
2 1/4 cup pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla
In a medium sized saucepan, mix the sugars, cream of tarter, salt and half and half over medium heat until the mixture reaches 236 degrees, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, and cool the mixture to 220 degrees.
Add the butter and vanilla and cool until the mixture starts to thicken–you’ll have to keep a close eye on it! Once thickened, mix in the pecans and drop by the tablespoon full onto waxed paper.
Once set, they’ll be hard. Store in airtight container.
More Mardi Gras Fun!
Be sure to check out some of my other Mardi Gras posts to get your celebration started:
Don’t forget to pin this
Pecan Praline recipe for later!
Those are Praline Perfection! That old cookbook is definitely the next best thing to your own grandma’s recipe. At least you can be sure it’s someone’s grandma’s cherished recipe!
It’s been years since I’ve had these and unfortunately I’ve never made them. My Creole ancestors probably aren’t too happy about that, these look amazingly good!
these look delicious! thanks so much for sharing at #merrymonday !
The other day, I was reminiscing about a trip we took to New Orleans (blog post in process). These pralines are a happy reminder of visiting Aunt Sally’s pralines shop. I will give your recipe a try!
Food that brings up good memories is the BEST kind!! Enjoy!
These look like the pralines we used to get at a tiny little Mom & Pop Mexican restaurant when I was a kid. I think I will give them a try this weekend. Thanks for the recipe and the idea!
These look amazing! I lived in Baton Rouge for a bit years ago and definitely visited New Orleans but, never for Mardi Gras and not sure I ever tried pralines at all but, I should now 😉 Thanks for sharing with us at Funtastic Friday!
Go out and make these immediately!! 🙂
These look AMAZING! Do you mind if I share on my blog’s mini roundup tomorrow??
Absolutely!
How long do you let vanilla and butter sit in pan?
These look soooo good. We had the BEST praline in Charleston last September. It was stupid expensive, but so good!!!! Pinned this to try! XO
Charleston is a kissing cousin to Nola in many ways! I’m sure it WAS good! Hope you do give this praline recipe a try–I love this particular version. Thanks for stopping by!