• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Blog
  • parties
  • tutorials
  • printables
  • Shop
  • Contact

Frog Prince Paperie

Where parties start with a kiss of magic

 
You are here: Home / recipes / The Perfect Pecan Praline Recipe

February 7, 2016

The Perfect Pecan Praline Recipe

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.

 

A perfect Pecan Praline recipe--have to try this one!

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.

 

It's Mardi Gras time! Bring a little bit of New Orleans to your party with this perfect Pecan Praline recipe

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:

  • 30 Minute Easy King Cake
  • Red Beans and rice
  • Mardi Gras Party

 

Don’t forget to pin this

Pecan Praline recipe for later!

It's Mardi Gras time! Bring a little bit of New Orleans to your party with this perfect Pecan Praline recipe

Filed Under: recipes Tagged With: candy recipe, mardi gras, praline, recipe

Never Miss a Post!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Nikki @ Tikkido says

    February 8, 2016 at 10:13 am

    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!

    Reply
  2. Sandra says

    February 8, 2016 at 7:15 pm

    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!

    Reply
  3. Lindsay says

    February 16, 2016 at 11:32 am

    these look delicious! thanks so much for sharing at #merrymonday !

    Reply
  4. Morgan says

    January 30, 2017 at 7:23 pm

    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!

    Reply
    • Paula Biggs says

      February 9, 2017 at 1:28 pm

      Food that brings up good memories is the BEST kind!! Enjoy!

      Reply
  5. Anne says

    January 31, 2017 at 3:42 pm

    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!

    Reply
  6. Angie ~ ambient wares says

    February 3, 2017 at 10:08 am

    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!

    Reply
    • Paula Biggs says

      February 9, 2017 at 1:18 pm

      Go out and make these immediately!! 🙂

      Reply
  7. Ashley Elizabeth says

    February 1, 2018 at 5:23 pm

    These look AMAZING! Do you mind if I share on my blog’s mini roundup tomorrow??

    Reply
    • Paula Biggs says

      February 5, 2018 at 9:41 am

      Absolutely!

      Reply
  8. D says

    December 11, 2018 at 5:51 am

    How long do you let vanilla and butter sit in pan?

    Reply
  9. Lisa Richardson says

    March 4, 2019 at 10:57 am

    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

    Reply
    • Paula Biggs says

      March 5, 2019 at 8:37 pm

      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!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Meet Paula

My father came home from a trip for work when I was a little girl toting a huge (to me) book of fairy tales. I was instantly smitten with the beautiful illustrations and the stories that came alive from those worn pages. My favorite was always the frog prince…my mother read it to me over and over (and over.) Read More…

Sign Up for our FREE Newsletter

OUR STORY   |   PRESS   |   TOPICS   |   POLICIES   |   CONTACT US

Copyright© 2020 · Frog Prince Paperie · Genesis theme customized by Grits Design · Professional Blog Hosting by House of Ideas