I woke up today to find that bristol is under a blanket of snow. It’s beautiful! But instead of braving the cold, I thought I would stay in today and make something with what I can find in my cupboards (not a lot). This is a simple recipe that is more akin to the traditional praline recipes of the 19th century. There’s no cream or condensed milk, just a small amount of butter. The rest is sugar, water, pecans, and a dash of vanilla! YAY I have ALL these things!
P E C A N P R A L I N E
1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup dark muscovado sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup pecan halves
2 tsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
To make the P R A L I N E , put the sugars and water in a heavy based medium saucepan. Bring to the boil on a medium heat stirring occasionally until all the sugar crystals dissolve. This will only take a few minutes. Then with your hands, crush the pecan halves gently into the saucepan, so you have a variety of pecan pieces. Stir these into the sugar syrup, and reduce heat to low, stirring occasionally. Cook for anywhere between 15-30 minutes, until the syrup begins to thicken and reaches setting point. You can test this by dropping a small amount on a saucer and putting it into the freezer for a minute. It should start to set pretty quickly if it’s ready and the mixture will look much more opaque at this point. If it just spills out on the saucer it needs longer.
When it’s ready, remove from the heat, add the butter and the vanilla, and beat the mixture with a wooden spoon unil it starts to stiffen slightly. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking tray lined with wax paper and leave it to set. If it goes too stiff to spoon onto the tray, just add a few drops of hot water and beat well to loosen the mixture.
You can either eat the morsels of candy goodness as they are, or crush and sprinkle over icecream etc… I am going to A T T E M P T to make some cookies with the praline later on today. So there may be another post on the way soon!
a pinch of salt 