Honey Pecan Pralines - Recipe File (2024)

FAQs

What causes pralines not to harden? ›

The simple answer is that there is too much moisture in your candy. One or more factors could be contributing to this problem. In hard candy making, it is important to cook all the water out of the sugar/corn syrup/water mixture.

Avoid The Humidity

Plan to make your pralines on a cool, dry day. If it's humid or rainy, as it was the first time I made pralines, the candy might end up with a more sugary, grainy texture.

A little crystallization in pralines is inevitable but adding a bit of corn syrup can help keep crystals from forming. In this recipe I also butter the sides of the pot and only stir before the sugar comes to a boil.

Powdered sugar - adding powdered sugar really makes the pralines smooth and creamy and removes any graininess of the brown sugar.

Why are there white spots on my pralines? The white spots are a natural process called crystallization.

Just make sure you buy your nuts raw and not already roasted. The main reason for that is that we will cook the nuts in a pan for 10-15 min. If you do this with roasted nuts, they will end up being over-roasted and your praline will taste very bitter.

Since the problem is mostly that the sugar in the pralines gets hard and crystallized, you might try softening them the way you'd soften hard brown sugar. Place a terracotta sugar saver in the container or something else that's slightly damp, like a few slices of apple or a slice of fresh bread.

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

A: The fuzz that you are seeing on your pecans is nothing to worry about. It should not affect the flavor, it just doesn't look right -- if you were trying to sell them, that could be a problem, but for home use, it is fine. That lingering fuzz on the nuts is usually an indication of drought during the growing season.

How Pralines Are Made | Aunt Sally's Pralines. Our famous pralines are created from a short list of quality ingredients, starring Louisiana pecans, Louisiana cane sugar, milk, and butter. The pralines are cooked by hand over open flame in large, bowl-shaped copper pots.

Does homemade pralines need to be refrigerated? ›

Should You Refrigerate Pralines? There is no need to refrigerate pecan pralines. They will keep for about three weeks in an airtight container at room temperature.

This method may still result in some crystallization after 48 hours. For the sugar-water ratio of 2:1 needed for rich syrup, add ¼ teaspoon of either corn syrup or a mild acid. Adding more of the syrup or acid will affect the flavor noticeably.

Sometimes, as syrup boils, sugar starts to form back into crystals, which turn hard and cloudy. Crystallisation can be caused by stirring, or a grain of something other than sugar getting into the pan, or often just bad luck.

235° F–240° F

At this temperature, sugar syrup dropped into cold water will form a soft, flexible ball. If you remove the ball from water, it will flatten like a pancake after a few moments in your hand. Fudge , pralines, and fondant are made by cooking ingredients to the soft-ball stage.

Even our Pecan Pralines. A mixture of Creamy and Chewy Pralines. 6 - 2 oz.

If you don't beat it long enough, then pralines won't set properly and will stay soft and sticky.

If your candied coating isn't hardening, the candying mixture did not reach a high enough temperature. Allow your candying mixture to cook until it bubbles, thickens, and turns a rich golden color, sort of like caramel. Then, quickly turn off the heat so it doesn't burn.

When the weather is hot or humid, it may take longer for the candy to cool, or it can absorb excess moisture from the air, which might cause the sugar to crystallize or the texture to soften instead of becoming hard and crisp.

The food processor creates a lot of finely ground particles (nut flour) which can also create crystallization. Make sure that your nut mixture is kept slightly warm. This will prevent the praline sugar from seizing and becoming too stiff to spoon out onto your tray.