Praline Paste Recipe
People tasting praline paste for the first time tend to fall to their knees and weep for all the
wasted years. For while it is an ingredient, it’s also a spread in its own right, a sweet nut
butter with strong caramel overtones. You’ll need to resist the urge to keep spooning it into
your mouth until it’s gone. The formula is elementary: 1-1 sugar to nuts by weight, but most
people like to divide the proportion of nuts between blanched almonds and hazelnuts. So let’s
say, for purposes of argument, you wanted to make a pound of praline paste for a mid-day
snack. You’d use:
8 ounces (225 grams) granulated sugar
1/4 cup water (6 centiliters)
4 ounces (113 grams) blanched almonds (113 grams)
4 ounces (113 grams) hazelnuts (peeled makes the best presentation)
Place the nuts on a sheet of lightly greased parchment paper or a silpat. Then simply add the
water to the sugar in a small saucepan and heat it over high heat, swirling until the mixture
turns to caramel. Dark amber is usually the degree most pastry makers cook to, though you
can go darker for a stronger flavor. Pour the caramel over the nuts and allow the mixture to
cool completely. Then break the praline into pieces and grind them as finely as you can in a
food processor until a paste forms. It won’t be as smooth as commercially-made praline paste,
but the flavor will be, well…you’ve got to try this stuff to believe it.
Recipe:
100g peeled hazelnut, roasted
50g blanched almonds, roasted
150g caster sugar
60g water
Method:
1.
2.
3.
Skin and toast hazelnuts and almonds. See my tip on how to peel hazelnuts
Prepare a large baking tray and line with baking paper.
Put sugar and water into a saucepan over medium heat. Stir only until sugar dissolves,
STOP STIRRING and bring to a boil.
Ensure all sugar is dissolved - I actually swirl the pan to dissolve the sugar rather than
stir as you have less to wash up after but do whatever floats your boat.
4.
Wash down the sides of the pan occasionally with a pastry brush dipped in water to
prevent any crystals from forming.
Watch sugar like a hawk when it begins to colour, for praline it should be a deep
golden brown (similar to the colour of regular honey). It’s important to get the right
amount of caramelisation. Too early, the pale mixture will not have the desired flavour
and too late, the dark mixture will impart a burnt smell.
5.
Sugar begins to colour and caramelise at 160C. I don't usually use a thermometer for
this but have included it here for your reference. Sugar is at 166C in this pic.
6.
Just before desired colour is achieved, tip the nuts into the pan and quickly swirl them
around to coat with caramel and pour caramel nut mixture onto the baking paper lined
baking tray. Work quickly, addition of nuts to caramel will reduce the temperature and
sugar will start to set.
Praline
7.
8.
Leave to cool and set completely
Break into large chunks and finely crush until it reaches a paste using a food processor
or pestle and mortar. Crushed praline - stop here if you want this still with a bit of
crunch.
Useful tips: How to easily skin / peel a hazelnut (Julia
Child / Alice Medrich method)
April 3, 2012 by syll
Many recipes involve using hazelnuts and begin by having to remove the skin/ peel. I tried
using the traditional method of roasting and patiently using a dish towel to remove the skins
but soon lost patience and learnt to totally avoid recipes that require peeled hazelnuts if I was
not able to locate pre-peeled hazelnuts in the supermarket.
*drum roll* until I discovered this easy peasy method by Alice Medrich which was
popularised by Julia Child. It is much easier but messy and fiddly nevertheless!
Recipe:
500ml boiling water
2 tbsp baking soda
Any amount of hazelnuts that you can immerse in that liquid (I used 550g whole hazelnuts)
Method:
1.
Bring water to boil in a saucepan large saucepan (water will foam up and bubble over
if you use a small saucepan).
Step 2: Add baking soda to boiling water
2.
3.
Add 2 tbsp baking soda – will foam up at this point
Immediately add hazelnuts into the water and boil for 3 minutes – water will go
reddish and foam up again
Step 3: Reddish foam when hazelnuts are added into saucepan
4.
Prep a small bowl and fill with cold tap water
5.
6.
After 3 minutes, remove one hazelnut from the mixture and drop into cold water. Use
your fingers to check if the skin of the hazelnut can be easily removed when you rub
the hazelnut skin. If it doesn’t detach easily, return to the pan continue boiling for an
additional minute and repeat test on a different sample.
When done, pour the entire pan contents (hazelnuts and black coloured water) into a
colander and run under cold water.
Step 6: Tip contents into a colander and run under cold water to "shock" cool
hazelnuts
7.
Rub a bunch of hazelnuts between your hands (like when one rubs hands together in
glee / warm up cold hands in winter) or use a disposable tea towel to remove hazelnut
skin / peel. I also then dunked the remaining half peeled ones into a bowl of water to
remove the remaining scraps of peel to minimise the mess.
Step 7: How it looks like once it was blanched in baking soda solution
8.
9.
Then place on a kitchen towel lined tray / cooling rack to dry.
If desired, toast in the oven for 15 minutes at 180 C. Step 9: Roasted hazelnuts
I started out with 550g of hazelnuts (according to the packaging) and ended up with
500g of roasted peeled hazelnuts ( but some hazelnuts were consumed in the name of
tasting).