The most beautiful sight of the holidays is kitchen counters covered in confections and candies cooling on long cuttings of parchment paper. Some are dusted in powdered sugar; others gleam with specs of candied fruit; and several harden into solid sheets of colorful cooked sugar, waiting to be shattered. But, as a Southerner worth my title, my eye is quick to find the lumps of gold and brown roughly sitting in the shape of a circle. Pralines are decadent. Their buttery sweetness complements the already rich flavor of toasted pecans. Creamy in flavor and both sandy and crunchy in texture, pralines are quite possibly the quintessential confection to represent the pecan trees and sugar cane native to the South.
Sugar is one of the most finicky ingredients in the kitchen. The temperature to which sugar is cooked determines how it will set up as it cools. Pralines should be cooked to 236°F (soft ball stage) so that it is still pliable when it cools and so it maintains the smooth sandy texture typical of pralines. This is impossible to determine without a thermometer, and if you overheat the sugar, you are guaranteed to make pralines that are too firm and grainy.
Tip #2: Prepare Everything Before You Begin
Having everything measured and ready before you begin is necessary for success—you should not leave the stove once you begin the process. If you’re scrambling to throw parchment paper on a baking sheet while your sugar is cooking, you might overcook it, and there’s no recovery from that mistake.
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Tip #3: Use a Big Pot
The molten sugar gurgles as it cooks, sometimes causing spurts of hot sugar to splash up. A big pot prevents both messes and burns. It also makes it easier to stir the praline without your hand being too close to the heat.
Tip #4: Listen While You Stir
The final step in preparing praline is to constantly stir the praline for a few minutes after it has cooled to 150°F. As you stir the praline, you will feel the sugar thicken slightly and the moment you hear the pecans make a grainy scraping sound, stop stirring and quickly scoop the pralines onto the prepared parchment. The glossiness of the sugar will be gone. Be sure to work quickly as the pralines will begin to set and harden soon after you begin scooping them.
If the sugar mixture is not cooked to the proper temperature (the hard-crack stage 300-310° F {149-154° C.} or if you are working in a kitchen with high humidity, chances are your candy is retaining too much moisture.
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.
But if your pralines are still gooey after 30-40 minutes, you may have to scrape them back into the pan and heat them again. Add a tablespoon of milk, melt the sugar, and as before, stir constantly while you bring them to a boil. When the mixture begins to thicken, begin dipping them out again and cross your fingers!
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. After the candy reaches soft-ball stage, it is left to cool for 10 minutes without agitation.
The white spots are a natural process called crystallization. Because our pralines are made with NO preservatives, the white spots occur over time as the cooked sugar returns to its original crystal form. The process begins as soon as the candy leaves the pot, and does not affect flavor.
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.
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.
Always use a heavy bottomed pot to make the pralines which will disperse heat evenly. Uneven heat distribution or fiddling too much with the temperature of the sugar can also lead to crystallization.
Why Won't My Pralines Set Up? If you find that your pralines are not setting up, it may be that the mixture either did not reach the correct temperature or was not mixed long enough. You want your mixture to reach 236°F, also known as the soft ball stage.
Pralines will keep well for 1 or 2 weeks at room temperature. After that, the sugar will begin to crystallize and the candy will get harder and gritty. To ensure they stay fresh, proper storage is key. Pack them in an airtight container as soon as the candy hardens and use parchment or wax paper to separate layers.
Each time you test the candy use a fresh bowl of cold water. If the candy forms a thin thread and does not "ball up", it is in the thread stage or 230°—235°F. This stage is similar to sugar syrup rather than candy. If the candy forms a soft pliable ball, it is in the softball stage, about 235°— 240°F.
Humidity is the enemy of hard candy. It will turn it into hard, sticky, goo. I'd try sealing a few pieces in an air-tight container along with some dry rice (or better, silica gel packets) and see if that works better. Instead of powdered sugar, try dusting the candies with a tiny bit of cornstarch.
termed in kitchen parlance the soft ball stage, that point between 234 and 240 °F (112 and 115 °C) at which a small ball of the candy dropped in ice water neither disintegrates nor flattens when picked up with the fingers.
If you don't beat it long enough, then pralines won't set properly and will stay soft and sticky. Work quickly to drop heaping tablespoons of pecan praline mixture onto the parchment paper-lined baking sheet. I find that it works best to use a cookie dough scoop.
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.
If the caramel forms a pliable soft ball, for instance, it's around 240°F. If it forms a hard ball, it's between 250°F to 260°F, etc. Sometimes recipes will even use the descriptors below to specify the stage your caramel should be cooked to. Hard toffee, brittle, etc.
Introduction: My name is Kimberely Baumbach CPA, I am a gorgeous, bright, charming, encouraging, zealous, lively, good person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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