Pecan Pralines vs Praline Pecans (2024)

FAQs

Pecan Pralines vs Praline Pecans? ›

For one, pecan pralines are a patty-shaped candy made from pecans and several other ingredients, typically sugar, butter, and cream. Praline pecans, on the other hand, are individual pecan nuts with a praline-flavored coating.

Butter pecan is a flavor combination of pecans, butter, and pure vanilla flavoring, making this a sweet treat you want to bite your teeth into. Pecan pralines are another popular treat option using pecans. However, pecan pralines are much sweeter and more sugar forward compared to butter pecan.

Praline may have originally been inspired in France by the cook of Marshal du Plessis-Praslin (1602–1675), with the word praline deriving from the name Praslin. Early pralines were whole almonds individually coated in caramelized sugar, as opposed to dark nougat, where a sheet of caramelized sugar covers many nuts.

French praline: almonds that are cooked in boiling sugar until caramelized and crunchy. The candied almonds can then be ground to create pralin, which is used to fill chocolates or create chocolates that are categorized as praliné.

Pralines have a lot in common with nut brittle, with the difference being mostly in the addition of cream and the cooking temperature––the sugary syrup used to coat pralines is heated to a soft-ball consistency, a lower temperature than the hard-crack stage of peanut brittle.

For one, pecan pralines are a patty-shaped candy made from pecans and several other ingredients, typically sugar, butter, and cream. Praline pecans, on the other hand, are individual pecan nuts with a praline-flavored coating.

Praliné is a nut-based paste used widely in pastry-making. It's not to be confused with praline, which is a candy coated with caramelized sugar.

In Louisiana, especially New Orleans, the name praline applies to candies made with pecans in a coating of brown sugar sold by Creole women known as pralinières. Even before the Civil War and Emancipation, pralines were an early entrepreneurial vehicle for free women of color in New Orleans.

New Orleans Praline Recipe

Most recipes include a few traditional base ingredients: sugar, milk, butter and pecans. The New Orleans School of Cooking teaches guests to make a traditional praline. Whether in the French Quarter or in the comfort of your own home, you can use this recipe to make a batch of your own.

Being that pecans are the main ingredient; the snack contains essential vitamins & minerals, can aid in long-term heart health, can be enjoyed by gluten intolerant consumers, can provide a high number of antioxidants, and can supply a large amount of protein & fiber.

Do pralines go bad? ›

After three weeks, the pralines will not go bad but the sugar will begin to re-crystallize and so they will lose their delicious creaminess and will get a little harder to chew.

Thanks to its relatively high fat content, nougat is soft and literally melts in the mouth. Other names for nougat include nugat, the French word “praline” or “noisette”. The latter is a little misleading, as, strictly speaking, it is a chocolate featuring finely ground hazelnuts.

The vanilla flavoring makes a big difference here — it distinguishes butter pecan as vanilla-forward, while pralines are more caramel sugar-forward.

The French settlers in Louisiana brought the praline tradition with them. African-American cooks working in the French colonists' kitchens transformed the sugared-almond praline. Because of their abundance, pecans replaced almonds and milk was added. The final product was a sweet, creamy patty filled with pecans.

Although the earliest pralines have been around for centuries, today, there are three main different types that have developed through the ages: the French praline, the American praline, and the Belgian praline.

Simply put, butter pecan is a flavor that merges the nutty notes of pecan with rich butter and a hint of sweet vanilla extract. The distinctive flavor of the pecan is hard to pinpoint – even for experts – but is perhaps best described as having sweet, fat, and roasted undertones.

Is butterscotch the same as butter pecan? No, they are not the same. Butterscotch is a sauce made by mixing brown sugar and melted butter together and cooking until it achieves a caramel-like consistency. It doesn't have any nuts.

The pecan flavor is rich and sweet enough to enjoy, so buying it with added sugar would do you no good. Unlike peanut butter and other kinds of nut butter, it doesn't affect your breath or leave a lingering aftertaste. Moreover, it isn't particularly oily like almond butter either.

What flavor is the ice cream in butter pecan? The ice cream flavor in Butter Pecan Ice Cream is actually classic vanilla! The “buttery” flavor in the ice cream comes from the toasted pecans and the brown sugar, it has almost a caramel-like flavor.