Praline

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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. Praline candy patties are one of the foods most often associated with New Orleans, but are also popular in other antebellum 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, 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 and pastries.

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 The Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium to refer to filled chocolates in general. In United Kingdom, the term can refer either to praline (the filling for chocolates) or, less commonly, to the original whole-nut pralines.

Robert King Wilkerson, a Black Panther Party activist, makes pralines called Freelines, which he developed while in prison.

In Louisiana and the US Gulf Coast area, praline is pronounced PRAH-leen; in the northern US and Britain the pronunciation PRAY-leen is common.

[edit] Origin of the name

The praline (originally spelled prasline) is said to be named after the French soldier and diplomat Marshal du Plessis-Praslin (1598–1675), whose cook supposedly invented it. 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.