Praline

Praline (US /ˈpreɪliːn/; UK /ˈprɑːliːn/) is a form of confectionery containing at a minimum nuts and sugar; cream is a common third ingredient.

There are two main types:

Belgian pralines consist of a chocolate shell with a softer, sometimes liquid, filling, traditionally made of different combinations of hazelnut, almonds, sugar, syrup and often milk-based pastes. These high-fat, low-melting point chocolates are at the luxury end of Belgian chocolate and represent an important product of many Belgian chocolatiers.

A praline cookie is a chocolate biscuit containing ground nuts.

Varieties

European nut pralines

As originally inspired in France at the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte by the cook of the 17th-century sugar industrialist Marshal du Plessis-Praslin (1598–1675), early pralines were whole almonds individually coated in caramelized sugar, as opposed to dark nougat, where a sheet of caramelized sugar covers many nuts. Although the New World had been discovered and settled by this time, chocolate-producing cocoa (native to the New World) was originally not optionally associated with the term. The European chefs used local nuts such as almonds and hazelnuts.