Pralines

It's been quiet on the blogging front lately. For the most part, that's been because I haven't made any blog-worthy recipes. But tonight I made pralines and thought I'd blog about that.

The photo doesn't do them justice... although I don't know that they look much better in 'real life.' Jason said 'they look like poo!' but then quickly clarified that he meant all pralines in general, not mine in particular. Thanks, sweetie.

Anyway, my friend Vicky is coming back to work tomorrow after her maternity leave. Some of us at the office thought it might be nice to have a few snacks to welcome her back to her cubicle.

I decided to make pralines mainly because I happened to have the right ingredients, but I also have kind of a soft spot for them in my heart. I was first introduced to them back in high school when I worked at Mabel's Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor. I have never really been much of an ice cream eater, but when working at an ice cream parlor you can't help but eventually taste all the flavors, and I discovered that my favorite was Pralines-n-Cream. Then when I went to Savannah for the first time I indulged in some of the free praline samples at the candy shops on River Street.

I had two different recipes for pralines: one called for buttermilk and the other for whipping cream. I had tried the recipe using whipping cream awhile back, and didn't really like how they turned out. The sugar had overly crystallized and made them taste almost sandy, but that could have been a result of me overmixing and not a fault of the recipe itself. I still had half of the bag of pecan halves left over, and I happened to have some buttermilk that I just bought to use in a chicken recipe, so I thought I would try the other version of pralines.

Here is the recipe:

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups pecan halves

1 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons melted butter

Use large pot--mix sugar and soda. Slowly add milk. Turn heat on low and let mixture come to slow boil. Cook until soft ball forms in cold water. Remove from heat. Add nuts and butter. Beat by hand until mixture turns light brown. Pour out.

I have two complaints about this recipe (I found it on the internet in case you were wondering). First, the mixture turned brown way before stirring in the nuts and butter. (I used my candy thermometer so I could be absolutely sure about when I reached the soft ball stage, so I know I was timing it out okay.) Second, that last line... "Pour out." Pour out into what? Then what? I ended up using my cookie scoop to drop small clumps onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.

This recipe seemed to turn out much better than the other one. The pralines are tasty! But it is a candy that requires a lot of babysitting. The mixture takes a long time to get to 240 degrees, and has to be stirred constantly so the sugar doesn't burn. I ended up standing over the stove for about an hour. So be forewarned!